ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the built environment; and, although land-use management and environmental controls provide for comprehensive regulation of the built environment, these are discussed in so far as they overlap with heritage resources-related regulation. It presents the bureaucratic functioning of the administrative system regulating the built environment in as much as it can be deemed to be heritage. The chapter describes the establishment of the system of authorities responsible for heritage resources management. It also describes the process of identifying heritage resources and examines the actual implementation of the controls provided for in the National Heritage Resources Act (NHR Act). Many towns in South Africa have long engaged in conservation- or heritage resource-oriented management through their town planning or zoning schemes. During the 1960s and 1970s civil society in many South African towns became increasingly concerned and critical of the appearance and impact of the then current architectural and town planning practices and ideas.
