The SACN secretariat has collaborated with the Urban LandMark (ULM) programme over the last two years to implement a series of learning themes about making urban land markets work better for the poor. Property rates policies are foremost an instrument created through the Municipal Property Rates Act (MPRA) of 2004 to provide a policy framework at municipal level within which a transparent and fair system of rating, exemptions, reductions and rebates can be implemented. However the MPRA explicitly incorporates a pro-poor objective alongside its fiscal goals. In urban areas, the poor struggle to access well-located land in cities and legal, institutional and procedural constraints impede residential property markets from functioning effectively in black townships. The SACN and Urban LandMark contracted Isandla Institute and PDG to examine how municipal property rates policies are, or could be, used as an instrument to promote access by the poor to urban land markets.

The results of this research and analysis were presented at a seminar in Johannesburg on 18 September 2009.

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• Agenda
• Attendance list
• Presentation 1: by Alison Hickey Tshangana
• Presentation 2: by Buffalo City Municipality
• Copy of report on Municipal property rates and the urban poor