Fiscal cadastral systems reform: A case study of the General Valuation Project 2000 in the city of Cape Town.

摘要

In 2000, the City of Cape Town generated market values of approximately 550 000 residential properties in Metropolitan Cape Town, employing Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA). These valuations form the basis for local government property taxation. A high level of risk and, hence, uncertainty, dominated the landscape of complex change, such as that undertaken in Cape Town's General Valuation Project 2000 (GV2000 Project). To guide policy and practice in complex situations, current research in the area of fiscal cadastral reform focuses on formulating an appropriate framework for reform, with CAMA as a primary element. This research identifies a suitable theoretical and methodological framework for fiscal cadastral systems reform. This framework is informed by theory which is tested in application on the case study of the GV2000 Project and thereafter inductively extended. The main contributions of the research are in the exploration of an appropriate philosophical paradigm for fiscal cadastral systems research, the application of social systems theory in the consideration of the processes of property valuation and taxation as sub-systems of a fiscal cadastral system, which in itself is part of a larger whole (the cadastral system), and in the development of a methodological framework for fiscal cadastral systems reform. The findings of this research are that critical realism is a suitable theoretical basis for research in fiscal cadastral systems, that a social systems approach facilitates a holistic investigating including both the natural and social aspects of the system, that a pluralist multimethodological approach accommodates both positivist and interpretivist approaches and facilitates the identification of a suite of suitable and complementary tools for research and analysis of cases of fiscal cadastral systems reform. A further research outcome is the inductive extension of what are understood to be best practices" in property valuation and taxation to an integrated, social systems, strategic framework for reform of fiscal cadastral systems.