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Municipal Support for Backyard Dwellers

Photograph for illustration purposes only.

George Municipality recognises that backyard dwellings provide important and affordable accommodation for many residents. The Municipality is taking practical steps to ensure an enabling environment and improve living conditions for backyard households, while ensuring safety and compliance with national legislation.

Backyard housing is formally recognised in the Municipality’s long-term planning framework since 2023, and a Backyard Housing Strategy was adopted by MAYCO in February 2025. This strategy enables backyard dwellings to receive their own prepaid electricity meters subject to certain conditions. Having a direct electricity supply improves safety, reduces fire risks linked to illegal connections, allows residents to manage and budget their electricity use, and enables qualifying indigent households to access free basic electricity directly from the Municipality. A direct electricity connection also allows backyard dwellers to install security systems, purchase electricity independently of the main house, and benefit from a guaranteed safe installation certified through a Certificate of Compliance (CoC).

In areas with high indigent levels, backyard dwellings are common. Rezoning to Single Residential Zone III allows compliant structures to be approved through a building plan only, without further land-use applications.Property owners may construct a second dwelling of up to 175m² without additional land-use approval and may apply to develop small rental units, subject to approval.

Provision of standardised building plans for all backyard dwellings is not practical as each property has unique characteristics to which the structure must adapt. National law requires that building plans are prepared and submitted by registered architects or draftspersons. The Municipality is also legally prohibited from preparing plans for private properties due to conflict-of-interest rules. The Municipality is working to make it easier and more affordable for residents to build safe, legal backyard dwellings. We have already updated our land use planning rules to better support this and plan to work with the Western Cape Department of Infrastructure to develop adaptable, cost effective standard building plans. These pro forma plans would help property owners save money and speed up the building plan approval process.

The Thembalethu Overlay Zone is being implemented as a pilot project that makes it easier and cheaper for property owners to formalise development. It allows flats and small rental units to be approved without a rezoning application, helping properties move from informal to formal structures at a lower cost.
Public participation has been concluded, and the overlay zone will be tabled to Council for adoption. Together, Single Residential Zone III and the Overlay Zone recognise existing informal housing and make it easier to develop more formal homes and rental units more quickly

In addition, the Emergency Housing Policy and Housing Allocation Policy have been reviewed to better support backyard households in need. Community registration drives and housing outreach programmes are conducted throughout the year and will be expanded to additional areas.

George Municipality remains committed to improving living conditions in a responsible and sustainable manner and will continue working with the Western Cape Department of Infrastructure and local communities as these measures are expanded. The safety and dignity of our communities are among the highest priorities, and the implementation of interventions will not be done haphazardly, but with due regard for the sustainability of the solutions.