Public Safety 

The Safety Officers of the SBID are always willing to offer assistance if accidents occur in their area of mandate. They are efficient at directing the traffic, keeping bystanders away from the injured or rendering any service that is needed. 

One such incident occurred in the parking area of Strand Square, when two young men who had been standing on the back of a bakkie, fell off when it turned too fast and the one sustained serious injuries. 

Recently the Strand PSO’s assisted in finding a stray dog that had earlier attacked a Jack Russel through the bars of a fence, pulling it through and almost tearing it apart. With the help of a member of the Strand Neighbourhood Watch the dog was caught and handed over to the Animal Welfare.

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Marthinus Fredericks, or Tienie, as he is fondly known, is a Strand BID Cleaning and Maintenance team member with the longest history in this capacity: he has been there since its inception of the Strand BID’s program to work with local NGOs to take homeless people off the streets of the CBD and offer them gainful employment. 

According to SBID Manager Johan Erasmus, he can be sure that there must be serious illness or else a very substantial reason if Tienie does not report for work. “Many have come and gone, but Tienie has been a faithful team member throughout, who arrives for work early every day.” 

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Dear Cape Town residents and businesses

The draft Budget 2018-2019 is available for comment until 16:30 on Friday, 4 May 2018.

A budget of R 49.1 billion will be spent in the metropolitan area to ensure that services are maintained, improved and expanded, that capital projects are rolled out and that the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) is implemented.

The effect of the unprecedented and continuing drought is a strong theme and has influenced many factors, including tariff increases and reviews in tariff structure.

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CITY OF CAPE TOWN

 

20 MARCH 2018

 

STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S EXECUTIVE DEPUTY MAYOR, ALDERMAN IAN NEILSON

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Judging from feedback received from businesses as well as visitors to the Strand during the past holiday season, the SBID’s presence and activities in the area is experienced as a positive and value-adding one. 

SBID Manager Johan Erasmus gave a few examples: 

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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. 

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“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.” 

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It appears that even injured, neglected or lost birds or animals who happen to find themselves in Strand, can rely on the kindness and efficiency of the SBID and its partners! 

 

Relief for Hot Dog 

On 6 February around midday, Strand Safety Officers Kevin en Nxesi came to the rescue of a dog that had been locked in a car since about 7am that morning. They had been informed about the animal by members of the public. 

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It had appeared that there was no water for the dog, notwithstanding the fact that it was a particularly hot day. (The incident occurred just beyond the boundaries of the Strand BID.) 

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The safety officers assisted in forcing open the windows of the vehicle and putting a bowl of water in the car for the overheated animal. The SPCA had meanwhile been alerted and subsequently removed the dog. 

 

The SAPS was also in attendance. 

 

Help for Hassled Birds 

injured rock kestrel

In one incident, Inspector Rohann Nolte of Secure Rite, who is employed by the SBID in Strand, found two small rock kestrels in Beach Road, one of which had possibly been injured by an airgun bullet or something similar. He arranged for the ruffled birds to be safely delivered to Birds of Prey Africa in Stellenbosch for further care. 

“We currently reside and do business in a much safer, greener and cleaner Strand.”

Expressing satisfaction with the progress made by Geocentric during the 2016/2017 year, Strand Business Improvement District Board Chairperson Grand Goodwin said this was confirmed by statistics. “We realize that we cannot take the status quo for granted and that the team must consistently work hard to maintain the current standard”, he said.

He went on to say that they were very excited about the proposed new interventions by Gene Lohrentz of Geocentric regarding the management of the Traders Market and the Strand Initiative Marketing project. “We believe that the aforementioned interventions by Geocentric and the CID are important ingredients to our goal of making the Strand a more attractive business and tourist destination.”

The Strand Business Improvement District (SBID), which is a non-profit organisation funded by local property owners whose mandate it is to address the growing challenges in urban management, safety and security, and investment withdrawal within the Strand CBD precinct, recently added from within stakeholder ranks a new initiative named ‘Future Strand’ that will be managed by the SBID.

This stakeholder group aims to consider ways to positively influence the future viability of the Strand as a vibrant central business district.

“Keen to differentiate the Strand business district from neighbouring Helderberg precincts of Somerset West and Gordons Bay, Future Strand’s short-term objective is to build a unique identity for the area that ensures it becomes a leading centre for commercial, residential, cultural, tourism and activities.”

Since its inception three years ago, the SBID has yielded some surprisingly successful results and many of the urban challenges within the CBD of Strand have been halted. Whilst the focus remains on basic safety and cleanliness, a natural shift towards creating and enhancing the people-centric vibrancy has come to the fore.

 

Community involvement is however required. Both SBID and Future Strand embrace partnership thinking, which amongst other things provides for collective and collaborative solutions involving shared human and financial resources.

The objectives of SBID and Future Strand are the following:

  • Improve the public spaces of the Strand CBD to the benefit of the local community, visitors, property owners and businesses.
  • Create a positive image of the Strand CBD with the aim of bringing people and investment back to the CBD
  • Create a vibrant, unique Strand CBD experience
  • Obtain the input of more like-minded partners that can work with existing property and business owners and the community to improve and elevate the image of the strand CBD

 

Improvement Districts and Area Based Partnerships rely on strong relationships between partners, stakeholders and the communities they serve. In the case of the Strand, there is a large number of potential participants (some overlapping), each with a significant stake in the success of SBID and Future Strand:

  • Residential and commercial property owners in the Strand CBD;
  • The City of Cape Town as the governing body, multiple departments, political and operational levels;
  • The Board of the SBID as strategic leaders
  • Property owners/ rates payers associations
  • Sectional titled bodies corporates board members
  • Retailers
  • Informal traders
  • Government services branches
  • Commuters
  • Taxi, bus drivers
  • Tourists, local and international
  • Visitors
  • Service providers
  • Law enforcement agencies
  • Neighbourhood watch initiatives

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 Theewaterskloof Dam looking more like a desert than a body of water:

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