SUB COUNCIL 8 OPENING ADDRESS I had the pleasure last night of addressing a public meeting at Radloff Park concerning the implementation of the Animal By Law at Radloff Park, which was requested by local residents with a view to finding ways to balance the rights of all users of the park. The meeting was attended by about 200 people and I trust that the reaction to calls for public comment around the budget will be met with a similar amount of enthusiasm. The City encourages public participation in the budgetary process and a draft budget can be viewed at all City public libraries and at capetown.gov.za/en/budget/Pages/default.aspx and is open to comment. Once the deadline for comments has been met, amendments are considered and the final budget is approved by Council at the end of May each year. New rates and tariffs are implemented at the start of the new financial year, being 1 July. I would encourage councillors to take up their budget requests directly with the line departments and to follow up their requests so that we can ensure that the sub council’s requests are given due consideration. On the 11 March the Mayor, Alderman Patricia De Lille, handed over title deeds to the Langenhoven and Engelbrecht families as part of a land restitution claim, which flowed from the eviction of these families from their homes in Somerset West in terms of the Group Areas Act. In one year, the City’s Environmental Health Department issued nearly 2 000 compliance notices and cleaned more than 600 erven at a cost of over R1,9 million in order to keep neighborhoods clean and safe. While every effort is made to claim this money back from the land owners, it is sad to see money which could be used for service delivery being used to do for some land owners what they should be doing for themselves by keeping their erven tidy. This sub council, like the rest of the City, and the country experienced the first load shedding in almost a year, and in spite of only being informed that this was taking place on the day it was scheduled to begin, the City was able to inform the public and to put contingency measures in place. The City continues to oppose SANRAL’s toll road plans and is of the view that the process undertaken by Sanral to get the N1 and N2 declared toll roads was improper and unlawful and its review application will seek to have the decisions taken during this process set aside and the project itself, scrapped The City is investing in skills development as part of our commitment to creating an opportunity city. As such 69 external bursaries have just been awarded to promising students, bringing the total number of funded bursars to 202 including The City is investing in skills development as part of our commitment to creating an opportunity city. As such 69 external bursaries have just been awarded to promising students, bringing the total number of funded bursars to 202. Of particular interest on today’s agenda is the report on interventions by the Social Development Directorate with regards to people living on the streets. The statistics contained therein show that progress is being made, albeit slowly, in reintegrating people into the community and once again stresses the need to give responsibly. The report will appear before this sub council on a monthly basis to enable us to monitor progress and manage the process. The successes also indicate the strategy employed by the City, in particular the work done by the Night Shelter, the assessment centre and the field workers are proving more successful than simply following a law enforcement approach which just moves people around from one area to the next. It also demonstrates that simply handing out food and blankets, while offering temporary respite, does not adequately address the needs of people living on the streets. The need for skills development is being considered by the Economic Development Department and this ties in with the issues around utilisation of the Eagle Bar building (which should really be considered for renaming in terms of the City’s policy), which would make an ideal venue for a skills development facility. A presentation on how the City is dealing with this matter is on today’s agenda, and the City is also considering other approaches to the challenge with the assistance of the World Design Capital Team. The policy regarding reblocking of informal settlements on today’s agenda aims to involve the community in re-arranging the space occupied by informal settlements so as to better optimise the use of such space, particularly in terms of health and safety. While the City seeks to meet the housing needs of the people, it also recognises that people do establish homes in informal areas and by encouraging people to be involved in uplifting their own areas, some improvements can be made to the lives of those waiting for houses. Finally, several applications are being made for extensions to liquor trading hours and we will have to approach this issue with due regard for balancing the rights of all residents and businesses concerned.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:05:35 +0000
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