Nick Wilson

FIVE residential improvement districts spearheaded by the Property Owners and Managers Association (Poma) will be rolled out in parts of the inner city, including Hillbrow, Berea and Braamfontein in coming months.

Brian Miller, executive of Poma, which specialises in inner city rejuvenation and consists of landlords and managing agents, says that as far as the organisation is concerned the residential improvement district initiative is a first for the world.

"In other parts of the world and in SA there are business improvement districts and city improvement districts. But there aren’t any residential improvement districts per se," says Miller.

He says that in order to make inner-city regeneration a success there is a need to attract people back to the inner city.

"In order to do this we have to upgrade residential areas with a holistic approach which includes all the strategic players revamping designated areas within the inner city," says Miller.

Poma focuses on "serious hot spots" or areas where Poma has control of the majority of buildings. Miller says a team has been formed for each area with all the strategic players on board.

These include landlords, tenants, the city council, city utility departments, the Johannesburg metropolitan police department and the South African Police Service.

The teams will be putting in CCTV cameras, as well security on the streets with additional cleaners. "We ensure that they upgrade all the particular services in that area and we have the blessing of the financial institutions who have stated they will then be prepared to finance developments in these areas," says Miller.

He says the five designated improvement districts will be launched in the next few months.

"You need success to breed success. Once we have these up and running we will then interlink with other areas and also with the initiatives of the Johannesburg Development Agency and other councils," says Miller.