KNYSNA NEWS - Knysna Municipality has appointed new members to its planning tribunal for a period of five years during a special council meeting on Thursday.
Following all relevant procedures and according to relevant legislation, council by majority vote appointed the new Knysna Municipality Planning Tribunal (KMPT) consisting of external members as follows: Ludolph Gericke (town planner and non-practising attorney), Daniel Lambrechts (town planner) and Neale Perring (civil engineer). A fourth member will be appointed in due course to fulfil council’s equal-opportunity policy.
The municipality's internal members are: Nonhlanhla Mndebela (head: property management), Charles Chordnum (IDP manager), Pamela Booth (environmental officer) and Lindile Petuna (manager: housing and qualified town planner).
Acting municipal manager Dr Michele Gratz said Gericke and Lambrechts are current members of the tribunal and have delivered excellent services thus far, Perring has many years’ experience within the municipality, while Booth and Petuna are also members of the current tribunal and bring with them a wealth of local government experience and expertise.
Presenting the item at Thursday's meeting, Gratz said council resolved on 13 February to extend the term of the planning tribunal for three months while the process for the nomination of new members was concluded.
“Section 71(1) of the bylaw provides that a tribunal established for the municipal area of a municipality in terms of subsection 70(1)(a): must be appointed by council and must consist of the following members who have knowledge and experience in any of the disciplines relating to spatial planning, land use management, land development or the law related thereto, be representative of a broad range of experience and expertise and as far as possible of the demographics of the Western Cape. At least three who are in the full-time service of the municipality, at least one of whom must be a registered town planner and at least two persons who are not municipal councillors or employees of the municipality,” she said.
Gratz added that the invitation for nominations closed on 12 March and eight nominations for external members were received, as follows: Daniel Andries Lambrechts (town planner), Susan Campbell (non-practising attorney), Ludolph Gericke (town planner and non-practising attorney), Jan van Straten (town planner), Neale Perring (civil engineer), Perino Pama (attorney), Gerhardus Mills (attorney) and Llewellyn Phillips (project manager).
According to Gratz, an evaluation panel consisting of herself, senior managers and the managers of human resources and legal services sat on 12 May to deliberate the nominations. “The evaluation panel recommendations for the appointment of the external members are Gericke (as chairperson), Lambrechts and Perring,” she said.
The panel recommended the officials who are in full-time service of the municipality to be Chordnum, Mndebela (as deputy chairperson), Petuna and Booth.
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