DMI Guideline Series – A5 flyer
Full information (content of the booklets) can be downloaded from the following link :
Maitland CID going beyond the call of duty
Over the past six weeks, Maitland CID has gone beyond the call of duty in various ways. Here’s a little round-up of recent happenings:
Escorting school children across the street
Public Safety Officer escorting school children at a pedestrian crossing over the extremely busy Voortrekker Road at the Maitland Park.
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Large workload for MAITCID
Minor repairs and, at times the replacement of for example road signs, are an ongoing concern in Maitland.
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Manning of Commuter Points
The public safety officers have regular commuter points which they man early mornings and late afternoons to create a safer environment for commuters during peak times.
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Team also tackles graffiti removal
Walls of businesses in Maitland are sometimes defaced by graffiti. This has to be removed by the cleaning team.
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Maitland Park entrances are habitually tagged with graffiti that also requires removal. The team make sure that they do a neat and thorough job.
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The City of Cape Town draft Budget 2018-2019 comment period is open
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W57 | STATEMENT BY EXECUTIVE DEPUTY MAYOR: ALD. NEILSON: Let’s keep our water-saving focus Team Cape Town
CITY OF CAPE TOWN
20 MARCH 2018
STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S EXECUTIVE DEPUTY MAYOR, ALDERMAN IAN NEILSON
Let’s keep our water-saving focus, Team Cape Town
As at Monday 19 March 2018, our collective consumption over the past week was 565 million litres of water per day. Unfortunately, usage has increased by 54 million litres per day from last week’s record low of 511 million litres per day. Nevertheless, we are confident that our water users will again shatter water use records in the weeks ahead. Read more below:
Our dam levels have shown only a slight decline of 0,3% to 22,7% . This is the lowest decline in dam levels this year to date. This can likely be attributed to somewhat lower evaporation rates and small amounts of rainfall, especially in the Steenbras Dam area.
We will continue to monitor the water usage trend to see whether the increase in consumption is a once-off occurrence or whether there is another underlying reason that would need to be addressed.
Level 6B water restrictions are still in place. Water pressure reduction remains in place, water management devices continue to be installed on the connections of high water users and the bills based on 6B tariffs are reaching consumers. It is essential that we all continue to save water.
All water users are reminded that the City is still required by the National Government to reduce water usage to 450 million litres per day in order to stretch the available water supplies through the rest of the year. This equates to a reduction of 45% from normal usage. We are currently hovering at just below a 40% reduction. A sustained collective push is now required to reduce consumption by just 5% in order to achieve our target.
We will continue to drive our initiatives to reduce water consumption. This will include advanced pressure management, the installation of water management devices at the properties of high water users and proactively implementing advanced water restrictions and associated tariffs to encourage behaviour change.
If all Capetonians join us by keeping their consumption down to 50 litres of water a day, or less, we will avoid having to take more drastic actions.
Please visit www.capetown.gov.za/thinkwater for all water-related information, including Level 6B restrictions and FAQs about Day Zero as well as tips to lower usage even further.
Clean-up of MiCiti corridor
The CID did a clean up of the MyCiti corridor in Koeberg Road.
“We are experiencing difficulty with communication between us and the Department of Transport of the City Council in this regard,” said MaitCID manager, Gerhard van Rensburg of Geocentric Urban Management
Initially the development would have been ended of with landscaping which was cancelled due to the approaching water crises at that time. MaitCID is reluctant to do any maintenance on this section and specificially on the centre island due to the cost and also the current water crisis but will re-evaluate the status of the area once we have consulted with the City
(See photos)
Geocentric Launches New App
“As Geocentric we are very proud to launch our new mobile phone reporting application,” said Gene Lohrentz of the urban management company recently. “This is another way in which we are enabling our CID business and property owners to interact with their City Improvement District Management.
“We want our CID contributors to become part of our family by interacting with us about issues they might encounter. The mobile application makes that possible on the devices most people have with them every day.”
The Geocentric app allows users to easily report issues in the City Improvement Districts managed by Geocentric Urban Management based in South Africa. Currently the areas covered by this Application include Beaconvale Industrial Area, Elsies River Industrial, Glosderry, Maitland, Salt River, Somerset West CBD, Stikland Industrial, Strand CBD and the Tygervalley CBD.
With this application users can report urban defects, crime incidents, public safety issues and general comments. “We will acknowledge your report and provide you with feedback throughout the process. We will also send you ‘Alerts’ of problems in your CID area, such as water leaks or power outages and we can even send crime alerts and safety tips to your mobile phone.
The Geocentric Reporting Application is Free of Charge
Simply install it and register as a user when using it for the first time. If you need any help, please contact support@geocentric.co.za
Let’s get started!
- Simply download and install the App from the Google Play or Apple App Store
- Register as a user, using the app when you open it for the first time
- We will send you a confirmation email and you will have to activate your app by clicking on the activation link in the email – this is to ensure we are dealing with people and not spammers.
- Go to your email and verify your email address
- Log in and you are ready to go!
Some of the Public Safety Incidents in Maitland this Month
Assault
- On 4 February at about 00h36 in the morning an assault was witnessed in Camden Road, where a person from Garden Village was assaulted as he left Tiffany’s Night Club. The injured person was taken to Groote Schuur Hospital by ambulance (see photos).
Arrested in possession of stolen property
- On 6 February at the Camp Road public parking area members of the Cape Town SAPS Cluster stopped and searched two males and arrested them for possession of suspected stolen property. Their alibi was not satisfactory. They were also found in possession off documentation that was not theirs.
Attempted dealing in stolen goods
- A man was shown away by Mega Metals when he presented various bits of telephone cabling for scrap (see photo).
Abalone drying facility exposed
- On 8 February an illegal abalone drying facility was exposed at the back of a residential property in Hely Street after a gas explosion early morning. Total number of abalone found were 11 400 dried abalone and 15 355 wet abalone with a combined value of R 7, 688, 900.00
Three persons were arrested: one female living in the main house, her neighbour from across the road and one other badly who had been badly burned. They were put under guard in the hospital. A second badly burned male escaped.
Injured homeless person
- On 9 February at about 02H50 in the morning the patrol reported that they found a homeless person by the name of Xolani Gqomoyi sitting in front of Cool Bananas in Sydow Street bleeding form the head. He said that he had been stabbed and robbed in Upper Camp Road. His girlfriend arrived and said that he was going to beat her when three unknown males intervened. He was taken to Somerset Hospital.
Theft of PRASA property
- Koeberg station, 10 February
An individual who has in the past on numerous occasions been apprehended and found in possession of suspected stolen property belonging to Prasa, was on this day again found in possession of dubious property. One of the frustrations is that in such a case Prasa or Metro needs to send a technician to properly identify the equipment before a case can be registered under the National Key Points Act and then for destruction of vital state infrastructure. This has only occurred three times during 2017 in Maitland.
Business Act Compliance
With the CID Law Enforcement Officers, we have rolled out a compliance operation in terms of the Business Act for trading without a valid business license.
- At about 23H10, the Café on Main at 311 Voortrekker Road (next to Tiffany’s was fined R 1000.00 for trading without a valid license.
- On 12 February, Apika at 293 Voortrekker Road was fined R 1000.00 for trading without a valid license. They did have a Company Registration and a Tax Clearance Certificate but all are dated.
- Rimano Superette at 328 Voortrekker Road was fined R 1000.00 for trading without a valid license. They applied in 2016 but never renewed their permit.
- The Kalahari Supermarket at 70 Coronation Road was fined R 1000.00 for trading without a valid license.
PICS: Maitland City Improvement District at work
The Maitland City Improvement District zone between the M5 Bridge and Koeberg Road continue to rejuvenate themselves with refurbishment and painting of buildings. Some of the property owners still need to join in this spirit.
The Capita call centre had a large impact on this zone, with further expansion between Beach Road and Green Street and Voortrekker and Coronation Roads (see photographs).
Cape Cookies between Green and Chapel Streets undertook major refurbishments inside of their factory and are currently painting the front section of their building.
The properties from 201 Voortrekker Road are earmarked for redevelopment. It will be incorporated with 8 Langham Street which is situated at the rear of 201 Voortrekker Road.
The Capita call centre
The old BMG building on the corner of Voortrekker and Station Roads, is currently being revamped.
Atlantic Seafoods in Koeberg Service Road also gave their premises a coat of paint.
Currently the premises which were the old Fairview Plaza are in the process of being demolished. This is situated at 203 Voortrekker Road.
The potted garden at the Cannon Bridge parking received more attention with the planting of water scarce plants.
A constant maintenance factor remains repairs or replacement of street signs and poles. The high volume of traffic and large trucks linked to the narrow streets compounds this problem. This is a direct cost to the CID which amounts to an average of R 350.00 per pole and R 380.00 per street sign, excluding man hours spent.
The Miramonte Street sign was repaired by Mega Metals whose truck caused the damage. The Milner and Cannon Roads street sign was again a direct cost to the CID.
Urban Management Trolley Introduced
The Geocentric Urban Management Trolley Project was initiated in 2017.
The aim of the project is to provide urban cleaning and maintenance teams with a platform to improve their daily tasks, assist with moving of equipment and tools and enable recycling while performing their tasks.
A few design considerations were introduced into the design of the trolley including
- The ability to move heavy loads of litter or recycling from one point to another without effort or potential injury
- Create high visibility for the cleaning and maintenance teams
- Have quick and easy access to tools and equipment
- The ability, even when fully loaded, to easy ascend and descend kerbs and sidewalks
- Be able to separate waste as they work to support the recycling initiative
To achieve some of these design principles, Geocentric looked at simple solutions from other designs, for example, the stair-climbing suitcases used by so many travellers. By scaling up the design for the urban management trolleys, we could produce a sidewalk and pavement climbing trolley where the urban management worker needs minimum effort to get onto and off pavements to perform their duties.
(See photos of step 1, 2 and 3 illustrating this concept.)
The trolleys were also designed to be pushed from any side with key tools located in the middle so that it is in fact easy to use it for a two-man team operation. On each side of the trolley a plastic tool box allows storage for small tools.
Recyclables like tin cans, glass and plastic bottles are collected by the urban management workers throughout the day as they clean the streets and public spaces and at the end of each day they separate the items into baskets whereafter Geocentric recycles the items.
This is another way in which we make CID operations more sustainable and environmentally friendly as we prevent a vast amount of waste from simply going to landfills.
Geocentric have rolled out these trollies in the Elsies River and Beaconvale City Improvement Districts and plan to roll them out to all the other CIDs under Geocentric management through the course of 2018.
Cape Town Mayor outlines status quo of water crisis
During a recent speech delivered at the Atlantis Aquifer, Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille thanked Capetonians who had been making efforts to cut their water usage, saying that about half of water users had restricted their daily usage to 87 litres per day.
But added that this was not enough. “We need each and every Capetonian and business on board as a partner on this journey,” she said.
“We are in an unprecedented drought crisis and this phase is critical because if the City and residents don’t do enough together and simultaneously, we will run out of water.”
She said the City was doing everything in its power to ensure additional supply, including finding and hiring the country’s best team of experts who were working 80-hour weeks with the metro to ensure that additional water could be brought ‘online’.
The Atlantis plant was one of several sites for alternative water sources which form part of the ‘Water Resilience Plan’.
The City of Cape Town had recently refurbished many of the boreholes around this West Coast area to increase the production of this plant. She pointed out that these boreholes formed a part of the City’s unique Artificially Recharged Aquifer System and said a lot of work had gone into ensuring an increase in the volume of water from this aquifer system.
Prior this work, the system had been producing around four million litres of water per day. “We have now increased the yield from this aquifer by an additional five million litres per day.”
The water is serving homes and industrial businesses in Atlantis, Mamre and Pella on the outskirts of the West Coast, which is quite a vast area. “So the additional capacity will be welcomed,” the Mayor said.
“This work demonstrates our commitment to addressing this current drought crisis. I repeat my commitment that I will not allow a well-run city to run out of water.”
She added that she had made it clear when the site of a new desalination plant with the V&A Waterfront had been announced: “we have a plan and we will supply water, but we need Team Cape Town to assist us”.
In the meantime, the City of Cape Town announced that Level 6 water restrictions will be implemented from 1 January 2018, which means that households using more than 10,500 litres per month could face fines and penalties. A proposal for a drought charge of between R45 and R2 800, depending on the value of the property, has also been tabled.
Take a look at these shocking images of the Theewaterskloof Dam looking more like a desert than a body of water:
