The City of Cape Town is in the process of consolidating its Public Parks by-law, so that a single by-law will apply to all of the city's 3 052 parks.

In the past, each municipality which made up the former unicity had its own parks by-laws, which resulted in unnecessary duplication and general confusion.

The new Public Parks by-law, which is in the process of being drafted, will attempt to bring all of these different by-laws into one piece of legislation.

The process of redrafting the Public Parks by-law started in 2004, says Johan de Villiers of City Parks.

"It is not a 'new' by-law, it is merely a consolidation of existing legislation in the City," he said.

"Currently, there are many by-laws relevant to parks, but these by-laws are only applicable in specific areas as they were promulgated by the previous municipalities. For example, the Gordon's Bay Parks By-law is only applicable within the boundaries of the former Gordon's Bay Municipality. What a nightmare this must be for our law enforcement officials when they must follow up on a transgression in a park. I am sure that in some instances it would be nearly impossible to determine which legislation is applicable," he said.

The standard by-law relating to Public Amenities was used as a basis, and existing legislation was incorporated into the first draft.

This draft was circulated to all internal departments, subcouncils and public libraries as part of the public participation process. "We received a lot of input from this process, which still has to be workshopped in and taken into the next draft," De Villiers said.

He pointed out that a lot of the comments will not necessarily be applicable to this by-law, as they are already dealt with in other legislation. For instance, there is already an animal by-law in place, so any animal issues - other than entry to the parks - are likely to be dealt with in that legislation, and there is no need to repeat it.

The draft by-law is currently being sent to all subcouncils. Once they give their input, it will be sent to a task team which, together with legal assistance from the legal department, evaluates all the input that is received, and will prepare the final draft.

This will then go to the Portfolio Committee for Community Services and then to Council for approval.

According to the draft, the purpose of the by-law is to "regulate the admission of persons, animals and vehicles to public parks; to provide for the use and enjoyment of public parks; to determine conduct that will not be permitted within public parks; and to provide for matters incidental thereto."

It covers issues such as maximum numbers of persons; admission to a public park; entrance fees; dumping and littering; liquor and food; animals; use of public parks; trees; safety and order; water; laundry and crockery, vehicles; games, and improper and indecent behaviour.
Although De Villiers was cautious about saying how long this process will be, he is optimistic that the draft by-law should be before Council before the end of the year.

He added that the previous by-laws will have to be repealed, but it has proven difficult to locate a lot of them, now that the municipalities have ceased to exist and staff have either left or been transferred elsewhere.

"There have been no drastic changes in the new draft by-law," he said. "At the end of the day, we will have a good piece of legislation."

 Please click here to view/download the Draft Public Parks By-law (PDF, 87kb)

For more information, visit "Policies and By-laws" page of the City Parks website: http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/parks/Pages/PoliciesandByLaw.aspx