Breaking the compliance deadlock holding back early learning centres in Cape Town

Over the past three years, the Centre for Early Childhood Development and the City of Cape Town have been working together to tackle barriers to early childhood development (ECD) centre registration at a local government level. Their efforts are aimed at transforming the regulatory environment to be more enabling and responsive to the realities of early learning practitioners in communities, with a focus on land use as the first step in the municipal compliance process.

The centre first approached the City of Cape Town in 2022 after engagements with a range of ECD centres in the metro revealed common challenges in achieving municipal approvals needed for registration. This led to the establishment of a joint ECD task team in December of that year, led by Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and Deputy Mayor Eddie Andrews.

“It’s difficult for ECD centre principals to navigate the world of local government approvals and compliances. What we’re finding is because ECD centres are not able to comply with the municipalities, they cannot reach the relevant, appropriate level of registration, which is silver- or gold-level registration, to then access the [ECD] subsidy,” said Yusrah Ehrenreich, Centre for Early Childhood Development advocacy and social justice manager, at the launch of a learning brief on the organisation’s efforts to address local government barriers in May 2026.

“In response to this, the Centre for Early Childhood Development Advocacy and Social Justice Unit decided to launch a targeted initiative, starting with the City of Cape Town, to look at those key barriers in the regulations, finances and processes that are preventing centres from getting those compliances in place.”

Breaking down barriers

The ECD task team has drawn in government officials from the different departments that centres must interact with to achieve municipal approvals, and has reported on its progress to the mayor and deputy mayor every two to three months. The “social partners” in the process have been the Centre for Early Childhood Development and the nonprofit organisation, Ikamva Labantu.

The team has been working with 14 early learning centres across formal and informal areas to trial proposed solutions to compliance challenges.

The key achievements of the ECD task team as of November 2025 included:

• Halting notices to cease operating: ECD centres without the correct land use were previously at risk of receiving cease operating and comply notices from the City, despite abrupt closures having serious implications for children and communities who were reliant on them. The City has indicated it will no longer issue these notices unless there are health and safety concerns at centres.
• Expanding the City’s map of exempted areas: The centre has co-developed an expanded map of exempted areas with the City of Cape Town to better identify vulnerable communities where targeted support for reaching municipal compliance is needed. This map currently supports at least 1,562 ECD centres attended by by 58,043 children.
• Attaining approved exemption from the administrative penalty: The ECD task team has assisted centres facing penalty fees, ranging from R500 to R40,000, for operating without the necessary land use approval, or with unauthorised building work. The City has approved exemptions for centres operating in government-subsidised housing developments, informal townships or vulnerable communities.
• Getting approved land use in specific zoning categories: The City of Cape Town recently approved amendments to the Municipal Planning By-Law that allow ECD centres in specific zonings to operate without obtaining land use approval, providing certain conditions are met.
• Advancing a regulatory system for ECD centres in informal settlements: The City of Cape Town is working to create a regulatory framework that supports ECD centres in these communities, as the existing system provides no clear pathway for practitioners in informal areas to obtain land use approval.

The ECD task team has also flagged that development charges are often unafforable for practitioners. These are once-off payments that must be made to the City to cover the cost of municipal engineering services aimed at addressing added demand on bulk infrastructure. According to the Centre for Early Childhood Development, the highest development charge it has seen was R1-million for an ECD centre serving 206 children in Khayelitsha.

The task team is working to make the City’s development charge exemption, available to ECD centres since 2020, more accessible for facilities with 35 or more children.

“It’s really important to note at the outset that we are not done as an ECD task team. There is significant progress, but there’s a considerable amount of work that must take place, particularly for ECD centres informal areas,” said Ehrenreich.

A more enabling government

Andrews noted that many ECD centres had carried an “impossible burden” for too long.

“We don’t want [ECD practitioners] to suffer in silence because we know that you are expected to comply, but often face a system that is complex, expensive and difficult to navigate,” he said.

“When people suffer, it is of concern to us, because it’s not only about... [the] operator, it is about the children. It is about the working parent, but most importantly, it is about the community... So from the City’s side... our message is simple: we want to become a more enabling government.”

Michelle Wagner, founder of Legos Daycare in Grassy Park, is one of the practitioners the centre assisted with achieving municipal compliance. She first started her centre 25 years ago, and over the next few years completed the complex process of registering it with the Department of Social Development (before the ECD function migrated to the Department of Basic Education in 2022).

However, in 2018 she encountered land use hurdles when attempting to increase the number of children her centre could accommodate. After asking the City of Cape Town send a building inspector to look at her property, she was told that she had unauthorised building work on the land and needed to appear in court.

Over the next year, she was required to pay a R4,000 administrative penalty, as well as R15,000 to obtain a traffic impact statement from a consulting engineer. After securing an approved building plan and presenting it in court, she was charged an additional penalty of R2,700.

When Wagner finally secured permission to take on more children, she was informed by the City that she would need to pay a development charge of R146,000. Shortly afterwards, the Covid-19 lockdowns came into effect, and her centre was forced to close.

Throughout 2020, she continued to receive notices that the development charge was increasing due to her failure to meet the deadline for payment. By October of that year, it stood at R194,000.

“During that time, in early 2021, I was at my wits end, really demotivated, having to fight and come back from Covid to reopen my centre and keep it open,”she told Daily Maverick, adding that she went from looking after 80 children before the pandemic to nine when she reopened.

“Obviously, you could understand not just the frustration but the uncertainty, and at that time I was just so tired.”

Lifting a heavy load

Having exhausted all her savings, Wagner approached the Centre for Early Childhood Development for assistance. She noted that speaking with the team at the nonprofit was the first time she felt truly seen and heard.

With the centre acting as a mediator between Wagner’s centre and the City, she was first issued with a reduced development charge, and then exempted from making the payment entirely.

The centre’s work with the City of Cape Town had streamlined the municipal compliance process for early learning centres, said Wagner.

“I know I speak on behalf of my colleagues and fellow principals [when I say] it is helping us lift such a heavy load. Because none of us want to operate illegally. I don’t think anybody opens up a daycare centre saying, ‘I’m not going to pay any attention to the laws of the land.’ But streamline it, simplify it, don’t make it so complicated,” she said.

Her sentiments were echoed by Anne-Marie Nieuwenheyzen, founder of an ECD centre in Blue Downs, who also encountered challenges in securing land use approval for her centre in 2019. Despite receiving notices from the City to cease operating, she continued running her centre as it was needed by the local community. This resulted in criminal charges being levelled against her.

With the assistance of the centre, Nieuwenheyzen won an appeal to keep her centre open. When the City issued her with a R146,000 development charge, payable within three months, the nonprofit organisation helped her to secure an exemption.

“If it was not for the Centre for Early Childhood Development... I would have been out of business, out of doing what I love to do,” said Nieuwenheyzen.

Between 2022 and May 2026, the centre had assisted various centres with the removal of charges and penalties amounting to more than R1.8-million. DM