Ownership, erf, boundaries, title conditions, servitudes and Surveyor-General information.
UDG / ARCHITECTURE × INTELLIGENCEDURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA · RESEARCH 01 / 05
PROPERTY / ACQUISITION / EVIDENCE
BEFORE THE
BEFORE THE
FIRST LINE.
A site is not an opportunity until its rights, constraints and economics hold up. Find a lead. Verify the ground. Test the downside.
01 / FIND02 / SCREEN03 / MODEL04 / VERIFY↓
UDG Knowledge Portal
One site. Every assumption tested.
Search authorised acquisition sources, inspect municipal layers, model the downside and ask evidence-aware questions.
ACQUISITION / DAILY RESEARCH
Find the hidden constraint. Then the opportunity.
Public auction, sheriff, liquidation and approved listing sources. Compare each lead against evidenced local transactions and municipal mapping. An empty board means no verified new feed data—not “no deals”.
Checking the research feed…
How to read the screen
Price anomaly candidate = 3+ dated, same-precinct achieved-sale comparables and an asking-price gap of at least 15%. No automatic assumption of development rights, land value, safe occupation or resale profit. Auction reserves are never treated as achieved purchase prices.
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Found a site worth checking?
Ask UDG to test the planning envelope, buildable yield and commercial logic before committing capital.
DEVELOP / 01
Know the deal before the design.
UDG's developer layer turns a site into a decision sequence: rights, risk, yield, market, cost, finance and programme. Start broad, then spend money only where the project survives.
ACQUISITION SCREEN
Eight questions before you commit.
Every item starts as either a fact, an assumption or an unresolved risk. Do not let assumptions quietly become “facts” in the feasibility.
Zoning, current scheme controls, as-of-right uses and any approval-dependent upside.
D'MOSS, flood, watercourses, coastal risk, unstable soils, heritage and geotechnical risk.
Water, sewer, stormwater, electricity, legal access, road ownership and capacity.
Realistic GFA, parking, circulation, structure, service zones and saleable/lettable efficiency.
Current comparables, competing pipeline, unit mix, achievable rate and absorption.
Land, works, consultants, statutory costs, finance, contingency, sales and tax/VAT treatment.
Approval time, construction time, cash-flow gates and what happens if the base exit does not work.
Use the live screenSelect a property and run the municipal GIS developer screen before building a yield story.
ASSUMPTION TEST
Quick development feasibility.
This is a fast sensitivity tool, not a valuation. Every number is user-supplied. It deliberately avoids pretending it knows the property's legal rights or current construction price.
NO CALCULATION YET
Enter your assumptions.
The result will separate theoretical GFA, net area, rough unit count, hard cost, total screened cost, revenue and margin.
Screening only. “Other project costs” must be adjusted to include the items actually relevant to the project; finance, VAT/tax, abnormal ground works, bulk contributions, marketing and contingency must not be silently omitted.
DEVELOPER / FIRST PASS
Find the unanswered question before it becomes an expensive one.
Six quick inputs. Your answers become a short, portable developer brief. We do not claim to verify facts you enter.
YOUR BRIEF
Start with the questions that matter.
Choose the site stage and what you already know to generate a targeted action list.
EARLY DEVELOPMENT APPRAISAL
What can the deal afford to pay for land?
Test a residual land budget and a downside scenario. Every figure comes from you; this is not a valuation, finance offer or confirmation of development rights.
APPRAISAL / USER INPUTS
See the land budget, not just a headline profit.
Enter a full cost basis and your required profit. Then test how adverse assumptions change the residual.
The residual method is a screening calculation. It omits staged cash flow, loan drawdown, interest timing, VAT and tax unless you have explicitly covered them in the entered costs. Land value must be cross-checked against comparable evidence. RICS development-property guidance ↗
APPROVAL PATH
Do the approvals in the right order.
The route changes by property and proposal. This is the decision logic, not a promise of approval or a fixed municipal programme.
- 01Confirm the base rights
Current zoning, scheme controls, title/cadastral facts and existing approvals.
- 02Identify land-use applications
If the concept needs rezoning, consent, subdivision, consolidation, relaxation or another land-use process, price and programme that separately.
- 03Close environmental + engineering triggers
D'MOSS, flood/watercourse, heritage, geotechnical, traffic and municipal-service issues can require specialist work or authority comments.
- 04Coordinate technical design
Architecture and competent-person information must be coordinated before the building-plan submission is treated as ready.
- 05Submit + respond
Use the applicable eThekwini DPEM route, track comments, update information and do not programme construction from an unapproved assumption.
RISK-LED TEAM
Appoint by the problem, not by habit.
Do not carry a full consultant team before the project survives the first risk gates. But do not skip the specialist who owns a fatal risk.
NeedTypical inputWhen it becomes important
ArchitectureSite strategy, yield, design, coordination, building-plan informationFrom first physical feasibility onward
Town planningScheme interpretation and land-use applicationsWhen rights are uncertain or approval-dependent
Land surveyBoundary/topographic/cadastral survey informationBefore precise site planning and legal boundary decisions
Quantity surveyingCost plan, procurement and cost controlAs soon as land value depends on development cost
Civil / structuralServices, stormwater, roads, structure, retaining and bulk worksWhere infrastructure, levels or structural system affect yield/cost
GeotechnicalGround investigation and foundation/earthworks riskBefore relying on normal foundation and earthworks assumptions
Environmental / heritage / traffic / fire / MEPSpecialist statutory and technical inputsWhen the site, use, scale or authority trigger requires it
COST STACK
LandHard worksExternal + bulkProfessionalStatutoryFinanceContingencySales / tax
A deal is not “construction cost + land”. Keep every material line visible and label it quote, benchmark or assumption.
HOME / 02
A clear route from property to home.
You do not need architectural jargon. You need the right sequence, a realistic budget and a team that makes the unknowns visible before they become expensive changes.
- 01Check the property
Title, zoning, access, slope, services, environment and existing structures.
- 02Set the whole budget
Building, external works, fees, approvals, contingency and finance—not just a square-metre rate.
- 03Write the brief
Rooms, lifestyle, priorities, future needs and the things you do not want.
- 04Design + approve
Coordinate the home and the technical information needed for the applicable approvals.
- 05Build with control
Use a clear contract, verified builder, controlled information and visible changes through construction.
Verify, do not assume.
NHBRC provides a public home-builder verification service. Confirm the current registration and home-enrolment requirements for your project.
Verify a builder ↗Plans are a legal step.
Building-plan work must follow the National Building Regulations/municipal process and may require competent-person inputs depending on the work.
Leave room for the unknown.
Ground, retaining, services, external works and changes can move the budget quickly. Keep contingency visible instead of hiding it in a rate.
PROPERTY / 03
One property. Multiple risk layers.
Start with the municipal parcel and zoning record. Then, if you are evaluating a real deal, run the full developer screen across public planning, environmental and infrastructure GIS layers.
Checking data sources…Official eThekwini GIS + approved feed adapters
PROPERTY CHECK
Start with a street, suburb or erf.
We show the source, what is mapped, and what still needs title, scheme, survey or professional verification.
FULL DEVELOPER SCREEN
Public GIS risk scan
Select a property and run the screen.
A mapped hit is a prompt to investigate. “No mapped hit” is not legal, environmental or engineering clearance. Nearby services do not prove capacity or connection rights.
Data rule: Official GIS is a screening aid. Confirm the current scheme clauses, title deed, Surveyor-General/survey information, statutory approvals and project-specific professional advice before relying on it.
LEARN / 04
Property language, translated.
Short explanations for the terms that affect a development decision. Ask UDG when you want the answer applied to your situation.
UDG KNOWLEDGE INDEX
Search the developer intelligence.
34 current portal topics cover acquisition, planning, site risk, yield, cost, finance, approvals, construction and handover. Search only what you need.
Select a topic or search in plain English. Only matching intelligence opens, so this page stays compact.
01 What is zoning?
The legal land-use category applied to a property. The label is not the whole answer: the current scheme controls and property-specific conditions still matter.
02 What is FAR?
Floor Area Ratio compares allowed floor area with site area. The exact definition of what counts must come from the applicable scheme.
03 What is coverage?
The portion of a site occupied by building footprint, usually as a percentage. It is different from total floor area.
04 What is a building line?
A setback controlling how close development may be to a boundary, road or other feature. A relaxation should never be assumed.
05 What is a servitude?
A registered right or restriction over land, for example for access or services. Public GIS can flag mapped servitudes, but the title deed and survey information must confirm the legal position.
06 What is D'MOSS?
Durban's Metropolitan Open Space System identifies environmentally important areas. If it affects a site, biodiversity/environmental review may influence the development footprint and approvals.
07 What does “service nearby” mean?
Only that a public GIS line is mapped near the property. It does not mean there is spare capacity, a legal connection point or a known connection cost.
08 What is a feasibility study?
An early test of whether rights, site constraints, yield, market, cost, finance and programme work together before too much money is committed.
09 As-of-right vs approval-dependent?
As-of-right is the base case supported by current rights. Approval-dependent upside relies on a future land-use or other approval and should be modelled separately.
10 Why check the title deed?
Restrictive conditions and registered servitudes can affect what can be built even when the zoning map looks favourable.
11 What is saleable efficiency?
The share of gross floor area that becomes saleable or lettable area after circulation, cores, plant, walls and other non-net areas. It is a design assumption, not a fixed rule.
12 What is a downside case?
A second feasibility that deliberately makes important assumptions worse—cost, price, timing or yield—to see whether the deal still survives.
PROCEED WITH EVIDENCEThe best move is the one
The best move is the one
you can defend.
UDG brings architecture, spatial intelligence and development thinking together. Use this research layer to ask better questions before committing.