In June last year, the City Council approved the revised Municipal Planning By-law to enable the City to impound moveable property – such as machinery and equipment – that is being used for illegal building work when an order to stop work is ignored. This amendment is now assisting the City to clamp down on building contraventions.
‘We added this impoundment provision to the by-law to give the City immediate recourse in situations where owners continue with illegal building work, despite us issuing an order to stop work. Some owners ignore the orders, and continue their construction work as they are prepared to pay the fines involved. In the meantime, and given the fact that these matters often take considerable time to be concluded in court, the surrounding communities are impacted while we are seeking legal recourse.
‘We can now impound the developer’s movable property, the owner’s moveable property and those belonging to the contractor involved in the illegal work. I’m happy to say that in the four cases where we have issued Notices of the intent to impound that the illegal building work has stopped immediately. We trust this is a trend that will gain momentum,’ said the City’s Deputy Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Eddie Andrews.
Since the start of the impoundment project in March 2026:
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Four Intention to Impoundment Notices have been served in Diep River, Hout Bay, Milnerton, and Mowbray
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No actual impoundments have taken place as yet, as the illegal building work has stopped immediately after the Notices were served
The City has 76 building inspectors who conduct on average 16 000 inspections per month at building sites across Cape Town.
The most common contraventions are building without an approved plan, or deviating from approved plans, and these are mostly by private individuals.
‘Unfortunately, there is a culture of disrespect towards the rules and regulations of the Municipal Planning By-law, National Building Regulations, and the Development Management Scheme that assigns zoning rights. This is a challenge across the whole city, and not a single suburb or planning area can be singled out.
‘The issuing of Notices to stop illegal building work is also not a simple matter. It is sometimes a challenge to determine the ownership, or to get hold of the owner, as the Notice must be served on the owner. Sometimes our inspectors are prevented from entering sites to conduct follow-up inspections and then a separate enforcement process is needed just to obtain access to see if there is compliance with the Notice. Court processes also take a long time to conclude, and this not only frustrates surrounding neighbours, but the City as well.
‘Luckily, with the impoundment provision in the Municipal Planning By-law, we can deal decisively with those who display a flagrant disregard of our building and planning regulations.
‘This is a gamechanger for us as contractors do not want to take this risk of getting their equipment impounded when the owner of the property has not followed due process in getting approved building plans. This new enforcement regime is getting into higher gear, and we can already see a mind-shift taking place,’ said Alderman Andrews.
Inspections:
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Building inspectors visit sites for inspections of the foundation and drainage, and upon completion. These are compulsory inspections and in complex or problematic cases, multiple inspections are required. Deviations from approved building plans, otherwise known as unauthorised work, are mostly identified at completion, which then require follow-up inspections to ensure compliance or enforcement
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Inspections to monitor progress are done at sites where work has been stalled for a while, or where issues may arise
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Inspectors also conduct inspections where a complaint is lodged with the City about possible illegal building work, or deviations from approved plans
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Demolition orders of illegal building work are issued through a Western Cape High Court procedure. The extent of the contraventions determines whether the City will pursue this route, which is usually a drawn-out process and costly
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The City obtains, on average, two demolition orders per year
Illegal building work statistics for the period 1 January 2026 to 26 June 2026:
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3 883 complaints received: 925 (Tygerberg district); 620 (Southern district); 502 (Mitchells Plain/Khayelitsha district); 407 (Cape Flats district); 387 (Northern district); 372 (Blaauwberg district); 361 (Table Bay district); and 309 (Helderberg district)
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Most complaints related to illegal building work (2 021); boundary walls (256); building after hours (137); and building rubble (121)
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12 566 inspections were conducted across the city during this period
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1 384 Notices were served as a result of illegal building work during this period
