The city of Johannesburg will go to the Constitutional Court on Wednesday in an attempt to nullify an act giving the Gauteng development tribunal the right to rezone land.

The city wants the Constitutional Court to confirm a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling declaring chapters five and six of the Development Facilitation Act (DFA) unconstitutional.

The DFA provides for the Gauteng development tribunal, which was established by the provincial government, to hear applications for matters including the re-zoning of land.

This, according to the city, conflicts with the town-planning and townships ordinance which provides for the city to make a determination on the same matters.

The city first challenged the act in the High Court in Johannesburg in 2007 after the Gauteng development tribunal approved two applications for re-zoning of land in Roodekrans and Ruimsig, west of Johannesburg in 2004.

Both areas fell outside the municipality's urban development boundary.

The application was however dismissed by the high court in 2008, prompting the city to approach the Supreme Court of Appeal the following year.

The Supreme Court of Appeal then ruled that chapters five and six of the DFA were invalid, and that the development tribunal should not accept or consider any application for the granting or alteration of land use rights in a municipal area.

The development tribunal would also not amend any measure regulating or controlling land use within a municipal area, the court ruled at the time.

The city wanted the court to declare the legislation to be invalid with effect from August 16 2005 and to review the approval by the development tribunal of the establishment of the two townships in Roodekrans and Ruimsig.

The court dismissed this application, finding that development tribunals had made a lot of decisions from the date of inception - August 2005 - which would be difficult to reverse.

The court ruled that the appropriate order protect the validity of decisions already made, enable tribunals to continue functioning until the offending legislation was replaced, but restrict their activities to legitimate functions.

"Needless to say, the declaration of invalidity has no force unless and until it is confirmed by the Constitutional Court," the court ruled at the time.

Other parties which have requested to join the proceedings include the MEC for local government and traditional affairs in KwaZulu-Natal, the eThekwini municipality, and Mpumalanga's MEC for agriculture, rural development and land administration.

The South African Property Owners' Association and the South African Council for Consulting Professional Planners have been admitted as amici curiae or friends of the court. They oppose confirmation of the Supreme Court of Appeal's order.

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