We present the Z-property and instantiate it to various rewrite systems: associativity, positive braids, self-distributivity, the lambda-calculus, lambda-calculi with explicit substitutions, orthogonal TRSs, ... . The Z-property is proven equivalent to Takahashi's angle property by means of a syntax-free notion of development. We show that several classical consequences of having developments such as confluence, normalisation, and recurrence, can be regained in a syntax-free way, and investigate how the notion corresponds to the classical syntactic notion of development in term rewriting.