Every development model starts with a number — units, bedrooms, lettable square metres — and most of those numbers are assumed. They come from site area multiplied by a density someone thought reasonable, not from what the zoning, the Spatial Development Framework and the services at the boundary will actually allow. A planning feasibility replaces the assumption with a tested figure. It is the input a quantity surveyor’s or valuer’s work should begin from, not a substitute for it — and it answers what their models cannot: what may be built, what it would take to build more, and how long that would take.
The earlier it is done, the more it is worth. In our experience these are the four points at which people instruct one.
Before instructing anyone, ask the municipality for a zoning certificate on the property. It costs little and names the zoning the land carries now — which tells you at once whether your model starts from what is permitted, or from something that would have to be applied for.
A yield without a programme, or a programme without the charges, is not a feasibility. It is only as useful as its answers to all five.
The yield the current zoning permits without any application — coverage, height, floor area and parking applied to this erf. The floor under every other scenario.
The yield a rezoning or departure could realistically secure, weighed against policy and the likelihood of objection. Not the maximum imaginable — the maximum defensible.
Every application adds months. A scheme needing a rezoning, a removal and an SDP is well over a year from transfer to building plans, and that belongs in the model.
Development charges imposed as a condition of approval, calculated on the demand the scheme adds. On a dense scheme, frequently the largest line a model misses.
Water, sewer and electricity at the boundary, confirmed with the service authority rather than assumed. Where capacity is short, the upgrade usually falls to the developer.
Written to be used, not filed. Six sections, each producing a figure or a finding that someone else will build on.
The zoning, the title conditions and any existing approvals, established from source documents. What the land permits before anything is applied for.
Units, bedrooms or lettable area under each scenario — as of right, with departures, with a rezoning — calculated against the parameters each would carry.
How the scheme sits against the Spatial Development Framework, any precinct plan and the SPLUMA development principles — and what that means for approval.
Water, sewer and electricity at the boundary, confirmed with the service authority. Where capacity is short, what the upgrade involves and who pays for it.
An estimate of the contributions each scenario would attract, so the model carries them from the start rather than meeting them at approval.
The applications each scenario requires, how long each takes, and a plain view of which are likely to be opposed. Time to rights, stated as a range.
The report is written to sit alongside a quantity surveyor’s cost plan and a valuer’s residual, not in place of them. It gives them the yield, the charges and the time — three inputs they cannot produce themselves — in a form they can put straight into a model.
Five phases. The second is where judgement matters most — deciding which scenarios are worth testing, rather than modelling every one that is theoretically possible.
Zoning, title and existing approvals established from source, so every scenario is measured from the same starting point.
Not every theoretical option — the ones the policy, the site and the market would plausibly support.
Each scenario calculated against the parameters it would carry, with the parking and open space each requires.
Services, charges and policy applied to each. Some scenarios fall away here, which is the point of the exercise.
Which scenario to pursue, what it requires, how long it takes, and what it is likely to cost in charges and risk.
Durations are for unopposed applications with a complete submission. In the report, every scenario carries its own range for your site, with the opposed case stated alongside and the charges each would attract.
Modest against the land it tests. The fee turns on how much has to be established and how many options are worth testing. Four things move the figure.
One erf with clean title is a short exercise. Several portions carrying servitudes, conditions and a history of approvals is not.
Each scenario tested means yield, constraints and programme calculated again. Comparing sites multiplies that by the number of sites.
Traffic, geotechnical, heritage or environmental input where the site calls for it. Each is a separate appointment and is not always needed at this stage.
A desktop view of capacity, or written confirmation from the authority. The second takes longer, costs more, and is what a funder will ask for.
Set it against what you are about to pay for the land. A feasibility that moves the yield by a handful of units has moved the land’s value by many times its own fee — and that difference is only recoverable before an offer is signed.
A feasibility ends with a recommendation, and the recommendation is usually one of these. The first often runs alongside it.
What developers, landowners and investors ask us before instructing one.
Send us the erf number and what you have in mind for it.
Send us the erf number and what you have in mind for it, ideally before an offer is signed. We will tell you what the land carries now, whether your scheme is within reach, and what a full feasibility would need to establish. Initial consultations carry no obligation.
35 Fricker Road, Illovo, Sandton · Development feasibility across the Gauteng City-Region