Mthobisi Masinga, a young
forward-thinking town and regional planner from
Pretoria, has been invited to present his innovative
research on rural land development to a high-level
international city planning congress in the United
States of America (USA).
Masinga, a junior town and regional planner with
Pretoria-based firm, KENA Consult, will represent South
Africa at the International Society for City and
Regional Planners' Annual Congress in Portland, Oregon,
in October 2017. He has been invited to present a study
on rural land use management and regulatory guidelines
for South Africa.
The study comes after his work in 2016 for the Limpopo
province's Spatial Planning and Land Use Management
Policy/Bill and Regulations, with its principal aim of
creating a partnership between traditional leadership in
the province and local and municipal government's
spatial planning management.
Work on the project included a collaboration between the
Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, the
Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional
Affairs, the House of Traditional Leaders and the
Limpopo Office of the Premier. Masinga says the
project constructively addresses the often sensitive
nature of land reform, adding that "the project's theme
is to give power back to the people through activate
citizenry participation, [and] the rights to the city
movement and advocacy". While the research gathered from
Masinga's work on the project can be easily applied to
other regions in South Africa and the rest of the
continent, it also has potential applications around the
world, such as South America and Asia. . ¡V Source:
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