Although now known by a

plethora of acronyms they all have one thing in common, providing

supplementary services to those provided by local authorities to make

urban areas more competitive and better places to work, shop and recreate in.

 

>From time to time in the future, Citichat will report on the status of

South African IDs (that seems the safest terminology given BIDs

(Business), CIDs (City), MIDs (Municipal), UIPs (Urban Improvement

Precincts), TIZs (Town Improvement Zones) and a couple of others!). As we

do so we'll showcase one ID in more detail than others, this week it's a

WID - the Wynberg Improvement District in Cape Town. The following list

might well not be conclusive as it is drawn mostly from the direct or

indirect involvement of either the CJP or PUR. It also doesn't include

literally dozens of initiatives to establish similar structures in

residential areas. An (e) after the name means that the CID is approved

by the appropriate municipality and established, a (p) that it is

proposed and already some way down the approval process whilst a (v)

means that it is up-and-running on a voluntary basis at this stage.

 

Western Cape.

 

Cape Town CBD (e)

Claremont (e)

Wynberg (e)

Sea Point (p)

Eastern Cape

Kingwilliamstown(p)

East London(p)

 

Gauteng

Johannesburg Inner City

Central (v)* 

South Western

Retail (v)*

Northern (v)*

Braamfontein(v)*

Newtown (v)*

Legislature(v)*

Ellis Park Precinct (p)

Garment District (p)

 

Rosebank

Rosebank Management District (e)

 

Sandton

Sandton City Management District (e)

Sandton Business District (p)

 

Midrand

Midrand CBD(e)

 

Pretoria

Esselen Street(e)

Church Street(p)

CBD (p)

Paul Kruger Street (p)

Arcadia (p)

Hatfield (p)

Brooklyn (p)

 

Mpumalanga

Nelspruit (p)

 

Kwa Zulu Natal

Durban

Central City (e)

3 around the Convention Centre area (p)

 

* Will be covered by a single CBD-wide CID by mid-year

 

Some recent information from two of the established IDs illustrates the

value of this type of initiative:

 

Claremont Improvement District Company (CIDC) in the Cape Town Unicity -

operationalised in December 2000 - from police reports crime has fallen

steadily in the area since the establishment of the CIDC, 54% in January;

28% in February and 53.6% in March.

 

We have just completed an 'audit' of this CIDs effectiveness for their

Board. We had a good feel for the area having carried out the original

Perception Survey now probably a year ago. The improvement is quite

remarkable, Apart from the safety stats above which speak for themselves,

pavements are noticeably cleaner, informal trading appears more 'managed'

and there is a high awareness of the work of the CIDC. They also have

taken a really pro-active approach to dealing with the problem that

exists in the area of street children and were about to open a special

facility to deal with this aspect.

 

The Essellen Street CID in Pretoria recently carried out a survey within

their operating area from which the following was ascertained:

 

·92% of respondents perceived the area as cleaner since the

establishment of the CID

·66% as safer

·98% believe the CID is worthwhile

·32% of tenants have reflected an increase in turnover, average 32%

 

Now for WID, the Wynberg Improvement District.

/p>

PUR was appointed in 1999 to undertake a Perception Survey of the Retail

and Business Centre in Wynberg, Cape and then provided a consulting

service for the establishment of the resultant Municipal Improvement

District (MID) as they were called by the South Peninsula Municipality at

that time. The Wynberg Improvement District was the first Improvement

District to be formally approved by a Municipality in the Western Cape,

in May 2000 and became operational in October of that year.

 

The Perception Survey highlighted an urban area under a great deal of

distress presenting a completely unmanaged appearance which had resulted

negatively on property values and property rentals, etc. The area was

characterised by litter, unmanaged informal trading, illegal posters,

damaged refuse bins, a particularly large number of homeless street

people and a relatively high level of street crime.

 

In a short space of time, the WID, under the management of Kristina

Davidson, has had a significant impact on the public environment of the

Wynberg Business and Retail centre demonstrating the effectiveness of the

CID process.

 

Employment. The WID has a full-time Manager in the person of Kristina

Davidson, a cleaning sub contractor (7 cleaners plus 1 supervisor), 2 Law

Enforcement Officers (employed by the local authority but paid for by the

WID) and 4 Community Patrol Officers. Whilst the cleaners are currently

operating out of a room in the Town Hall and the law enforcement and SAPS

from their respective stations, the WID is looking to set up an

operations room for all personnel.

 

Budget. R 1 010 000-00 per annum

 

Number of Participants: 100 rateable properties

 

Service Agreement. A minimum service agreement has been signed with the

local authority.

 

Parking areas - The WID has an agreement with the municipality to manage

the parking areas and currently is engaged on a pilot project using

street people as parking attendants, where possible, who sign a code of

conduct. The project to date has been very successful in one respect -

there are no longer hordes of illegal parking attendants trying to tell

you how to park / drive!They are now moving to the next phase, with the

introduction of distinctive uniforms and allowing applicants other than

street people to apply to be parking attendants. They are also planning

to employ a supervisor with a law enforcement background to check on all

the parking attendants, extending if necessary into the surrounding streets.

 

Street People - Vagrancy in Wynberg is still a major problem requiring

the WID to become extremely involved in seeking solutions. They do not

profess to have all the solutions to this problem, which is made worse by

chronic substance abuse. However, by working very closely together with

the many role-players, the WID believes that short and long term

solutions can be found to manage and control the influx of street people

in Wynberg. One success, in partnership with the municipality, was to

have the public toilets in Maynardville opened, under the supervision of

one of the street people. This provides street people with supervised

ablution facilities where they are also permitted to do their washing

early in the morning, before the public is out and about. The WID is also

very involved in the setting up of a multi-purpose centre in Wynberg,

possibly on the site of a current night shelter. The emphasis would be on

skills training and job creation, open during the days, so that the

street people would have no excuse for sitting around in the parking

areas all day. It is planned that the centre should include

representatives from all service providers in the area, thus ensuring

that a full range of services are available to the street people

(continuum of care or development continuum).

 

Informal Traders - Law enforcement has been very successful in

controlling the informal traders - there are no illegal traders in the

WID area and Council now receives 100% payment of monthly rentals! The

next step planned is to re-configure the trading bays and to educate the

informal traders on keeping their immediate surroundings clean.

 

Greening and the Environment. The WID has started a programme of greening

with trees and planting in terra cotta containers down the Main Road.

Owners have been encouraged to do up their buildings and one building in

Church Street and a number of buildings in Station Road have been

repainted to great effect. The WID also plans to repaint all traffic

light poles.

 

We took the opportunity whilst carrying out the Claremont audit to visit

the WID and again were impressed at the visual improvement that has

resulted from their efforts. Informal pavement trading which was quite

out of control previously is now clearly managed and could be further

improved through the use of appropriately designed stalls or small

trading markets. The big problem in Wynberg is the proliferation of

street people the majority of whom clearly having substance abuse

problems. This is a major issue in our towns and cities and, given the

roots of the problem, not easy to solve, but solve it we must.

 

So the CID movement is alive and well and growing!