Can SPLUMA play a role in transforming spatial injustice to spatial justice in housing in South Africa?

• DOI: 10.10520/EJC197706
• Date: 01 January 2015
• Pages: 26-41
• Author: Jeannie Van Wyk
• Published date: 01 January 2015

Can SPLUMA play a role in transforming

spatial injustice to spatial justice in housing

in South Africa?

Jeannie van Wyk*

Abstract

Our spatial environment is one of the most important determinants of our well-being and life

chances. It relates to schools, opportunities, businesses, recreation and access to public

services. Spatial injustice results where discrimination determines that spatial environment.

Since Apartheid in South Africa epitomised the notion of spatial injustice, tools and

instruments are required to transform spatial injustice into spatial justice. One of these is the

employment of principles of spatial justice. While the National Development Plan (NDP)

recognised that all spatial development should conform to certain normative principles and

should explicitly indicate how the requirements of these should be met, the Spatial Planning

and Land Use Management Act 16 of 2013 (SPLUMA) contains a more concrete principle

of spatial justice. It echoes aspects of both the South African land reform programme and

global principles of spatial justice. Essentially section 7(a) of SPLUMA entails three

components: (1) redressing past spatial imbalances and exclusions; (2) including people and

areas previously excluded and (3) upgrading informal areas and settlements. SPLUMA

directs municipalities to apply the principle in its spatial development frameworks, land use

schemes and, most importantly, in decision-making on development applications. The aim

of this article is to determine whether the application of this principle in practice can move

beyond the confines of spatial planning and land use management to address the housing

issue in South Africa. Central to housing is section 26 of the Constitution, that has received

the extensive attention of the Constitutional Court. The court has not hesitated to criticize the

continuing existence of spatial injustice, thus contributing to the transformation of spatial

injustice to spatial justice. Since planning, housing and land reform are all intertwined not only

the role of SPLUMA, but also the NDP and the myriad other policies, programmes and

legislation that are attempting to address the situation are examined and tested against the

components of the principle of spatial justice in SPLUMA.

LLD (Unisa), Professor in the Department of Private Law, Unisa. My appreci ation goes to the

*

anonymous reviewers of the article for their valuable comments. Any rem aining errors are my

responsibility.

Can SPLUMA play a role in transforming spatial injustice? 27

1 Introduction

The Spatia l Planning and Land Use Management Act (SPLUMA) contains the

1

principle of spatial justice. Its components can be reduced to (1) redressing past

2

spatial imbalances and exclusions; (2) including people and areas previously

excluded, and (3) upgrading informal areas and settlements. While the principle

echoes as pects of both the South African land reform programme and global

principles of spatial justice this article deals with the quest ion of whether its

application in practice can move beyond the confines of spatial planning and land

use management and address the housing issue in South Africa. Before one can

start to address spatial justice one must deal with spatial injustice. Two decades

into democracy South Africa’s landscape still largely reflects the spatial legacy of

apartheid. Based on racial discr imination apartheid epitomises the notion of

spatial injustice.3

At the outset the article attempts to get to grips with the meaning of the term

‘spatial justice’. By sketching the history of spatial discrimination in South Africa

a better understanding of ‘spatial injustice’ and the converse ‘spatial justice’ is

possible. Since planning, housing and land reform are all intertwined in this

transformational objective, not only the role of SPLUMA, but also the National

Development Plan (NDP) and the myriad other policies, pr ogrammes and

legislation that are attempting to address the situation must be examined.

2 Spatial justice

Henri Lefebvre was one of the first scholars to deal with the idea that the

organisation of space is a key aspect of human societies and influences social

relations. In his view, ‘space is ideological, socially produced, disputed and

4

constantly changing among social, political, economic, and geographic

territories’. Spatial justice links social justice and space. As a result, an analysis

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16 of 2013 published in GG 36730 (2013-08-05). SPLUMA comes into operation on 2015-07-01

1

– see Proc 26 GG 38828 (2015-05-27).

Section 7(a).

2

Lehman-Frisch ‘Segregation, spatial (in)justice, and the city‘ (2011) 24(1) Berkeley Planning J 70-

3

90 71; Strauss and Liebe nberg ‘Contested spaces: Hous ing rights and evictions law in post-

apartheid South Africa‘ (2014) 13(4) Planning Theory 428-448; Soja ‘The city and spatial justice’

(2009) 1 JSSJ 3 available at http://www.jssj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/JSSJ1-1en4.pdf

(accessed 2014-09-10).

LefebvreThe production of space (1992). See also Busquet and Lavue ‘Political space in the work

4

of Henri Lefebvre: Ideology and Utopia’ (2012) 5 JSSJ available at http://www.jssj.org/wp-

content/uploads/2013/09/JSSJ5-3.en_1.pdf (date accessed 2014-10-12).

Basset refers to Lefebvre (1991) and Soja (2010) in The role of spatial justice in the regeneration

5

of urban spaces 3 availa ble at https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle /2142/45124

/Bassett_NEURUS_Capstone.pdf?sequence=2 (accessed 2014-09-05).