Modelling and using a pattern language to inform land-use change decisions in rural Mooiplaas, Great Kei Municipality, South Africa

This article uses a case study research design to explore the possibility of using a pattern language as part of a spatial planning and land-use management process. In this process, municipalities and communities make decisions to change land use, taking into account the extent to which these decisions respond to the ever-changing context and aid the vision for the area to emerge. Using a qualitative research methodology, 67 semi-structured individual and key informant interviews as well as three focus group discussions were conducted in two villages within the Mooiplaas communal land area in South Africa. Thematic data analysis shows the specific socio-spatial needs (themes) that were used to modify initial predetermined broad pattern language themes to form the basis of the pattern language and spatial planning model that was developed for Mooiplaas. The study, using visioning and needs analysis techniques, demonstrates that a community can develop a pattern language that reflects a comprehensive vision for its area. This pattern language can then be expressed as local spatial development principles in the municipality’s Spatial Development Framework. In addition, as part of its land-use scheme regulations, the municipality can establish natural, intensive agricultural and settlement overlay zones, overlaid on an underlining extensive agricultural base zone. Anyone wanting to use land for any purpose not provided for in these zones must submit a land-use change application and the authorising structures are required to use the local spatial development principles to help inform their decision-making. Further, the study advances a new understanding of the pattern language as an expression of a community’s vision for a particular area and demonstrates how a pattern language planning approach could work in a communal land area in South Africa within the context of existing spatial planning legislation.