- Court rejects City’s claim that long-standing home studio was illegal.
- Municipality ordered to reverse all penalties since July 2019 and recalculate account.
- Judge slams City’s high-handed conduct and awards punitive costs against it.
For more than forty years, Sylvia Maria Lampe’s Randburg home has been more than just a place of residence; it has been the base of her callanetics exercise studio, a modest home business first licensed by the Randburg Town Council in 1984.
What began as a straightforward municipal licence turned into a relentless battle decades later, when the City of Johannesburg suddenly accused her of running an “illegal” business, hiked her municipal bill by nearly R9 400 a month, and repeatedly tried to cut off her basic services.
On 14 August 2025, Judge SDJ Wilson of the South Gauteng High Court put an end to this protracted ordeal. In a strongly worded judgment, the court found that the City’s conduct was unlawful, its interpretation of the law “far-fetched,” and its treatment of Lampe unreasonable. The ruling not only clears Lampe of any wrongdoing but also sets an important precedent about the duty of municipalities to act fairly and consistently when dealing with residents.
A licence that stood the test of time
The roots of the dispute lay in the City’s claim that Lampe did not have planning consent under the Randburg Town Planning Scheme of 1976. Lampe argued that the licence she obtained from the Randburg Town Council in 1984, and renewed annually until it was extended indefinitely, already amounted to such consent.
Judge Wilson agreed, saying it was inconceivable that the council would have issued a licence allowing an unlawful operation. “It beggars belief,” he wrote, “that the Randburg Town Council would have issued a business licence that authorised the illegal operation of Ms. Lampe’s business.” The court found that the original licence necessarily constituted approval for the use of the property, and that this approval carried forward when the City of Johannesburg took over Randburg’s municipal functions.
Punished instead of heard
Despite Lampe’s explanations in multiple letters, the City ignored her attempts to resolve the matter. In July 2019, it began levying inflated property rates, effectively punishing her for what it alleged was an unauthorised use. When she refused to pay the disputed charges, the City responded by cutting off her electricity supply, an action reversed by court order in March 2020.
Even after Lampe submitted a fresh application for consent and the City itself approved her business in October 2020, the inflated charges continued to appear on her account. She was forced to fend off further attempts to disconnect her water and electricity. The court noted that this relentless pursuit was both unreasonable and unjustified, given that the City had long been aware of her lawful approval to operate.
A municipality in the wrong
In its defence, the City argued that the original licence had been issued by the health department and not the planning department, and therefore did not amount to consent under town planning laws. Judge Wilson dismissed this line of reasoning, pointing out that municipal departments are not “separate institutions” and cannot act as though decisions taken by one are invisible to the other. Citing the Constitutional Court’s Olivia Road judgment, he stressed that municipal officials cannot take “insulated decisions” in isolation from their broader obligations.
The judgment underscored that Lampe’s case was not simply about one resident and her small business, but about the way municipalities engage with their citizens. “Had the City engaged reasonably and sensibly with Ms. Lampe from the outset,” the judge observed, “this application would never have been necessary.”
Relief, protection, and costs
The court’s orders bring sweeping relief for Lampe. All penalty charges levied since July 2019 must be reversed, her account recalculated, and the City interdicted from charging her as if her property were being put to an illegal use. Importantly, the City is also barred from disconnecting her services based on non-payment of those unlawful charges.
The High Court went a step further by ordering the City to pay Lampe’s legal costs on a punitive attorney-and-client scale, a rare step taken to signal judicial disapproval of the City’s “unresponsive and high-handed” conduct.
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