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.

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TVID Takes Matters in Hand

Tygervalley can be assured of a dedicated and comprehensive service being rendered by the TVID (Tygervalley Improvement District), as can be concluded from a report on activities in the area during the past few weeks. 

On the Public Safety front there was a large amount of activity that can set the area’s tenants and residents at peace. 

TVID Urban Safety Team

The public safety officers regularly patrolled within the TVID to secure the safety of the businesses and 

the public. Some of the responsibilities executed, were the following: 

Engaging with all people in the public space to ensure that everyone is aware of our presence and activities. This is done in conjunction with and in support of law enforcement who oversees such activities.  If something suspicious is found, Law Enforcement Officer and or SAPS acts accordingly 

Most of the security activities involving engagement with the public, appear in Havenga Street, Durban Road, Willie Van Schoor Street, Edward Street and Carl Cronje Street. 

According to TVID Manager Clifford Oostendorp, the reason for this is that beggars, bin scratchers and car guards moving from Bellville to Durbanville or from Durbanville to Bellville pass through the Tygervalley area.  

Examples of engaging with the public are the following: 

  • TVID Public Safety Officers engaged with a suspicious-looking man who was in possession of a “tik lolly” on the corner of Oakdale Street and Durban Road. Officers confiscated the item, gave him a warning and removed him out of the area. 
  • On Durban Road officers engaged with a person who had in his possession an undisclosed amount of City of Cape Town blue refuse bags. Our officers confiscated the bags and removed him out of the area. 
  • On 25 October 2017, Public Safety Officers engaged with intoxicated vagrants who were loitering in public in front of Virgin Active, Sportica Road. The persons were cautioned. (See photos) 

Loitering 3

  • Officers also engaged with suspicious-looking men who were in possession of knives on Carl Cronje Street. (photos) 

dangerous objects 1

  • Persons begging for money at Edward Street, Willie Van Schoor Street, Durban Road and Bill Bezuidenhout Street respectively, were cautioned
  • Various suspicious-looking persons were stopped and searched in Edward Street. 
  • On Edward Street, public safety officers engaged with illegal car guards.
  • People scratching in bins at Misspell Street, Durban Road and Sportica Street respectively, were cautioned and requested to leave the area. (photos) 

bin-scratching 4 bin-scratching 1 bin-scratching 2 bin-scratching 3

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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. Geocentric Reporting App 2

“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 

Geocentric Reporting App 1

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! 
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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.) 

step1

step2

step3

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. 

trolley 4

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. 

trolley 5 trolley 6

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. 

 

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Cleaning Team Multitasks

The task of the TVID’s maintenance and cleaning team is to clean within the TVID in order to sustain a fresh environment. The following duties were recently completed within the TVID: 

  • Cutting of grass and de-weeding at Havenga Street, Misspell Street and Durban Road respectively. 

See ‘Before’, ‘During’ and ‘After’ pictures to illustrate:

BEFORE

Before 3 Before 2 Before 1

 

DURING

During 1 During 2 During 3

 

AFTER

After 3 After 2 After 1

  • TVID Cleaning and Maintenance Team was deployed to empty green bins in our area. 

greenbins 1 greenbins 2 greenbins 3 greenbins 4 greenbins 5 greenbins 6

  • The Cleaning and Maintenance Team was also deployed to clear and remove illegal dumping in the TVID area. (See ‘Before’, ‘During’ and ‘After’ pictures.) 

BEFORE

illegal dumping (before)

 

DURING

illegal dumping (during)

 

AFTER

 

illegal dumping (after)

  • The team also re-aligned and painted bollards and street signs at Durban Road, Edward Street, Willie Van Schoor Street and Antrum Park respectively. 

bollards 1 bollards 2 bollards 3 signs 2 signs

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Urban Renewal On-going

TVID’s Urban Renewal team has back to back responsibilities relating to the maintenance and beautification of the area, when necessary in collaboration with teams of the City of Cape Town. 

  • The TVID team can be seen replacing a green bin in Edward Street. 

replacing green bins 1 replacing green bins 2 replacing green bins 3

  • The TVID Maintenance Team were deployed to clear and remove a tree that fell over in strong wind. 

removing fallen tree 1 removing fallen tree 3

 

removing fallen tree 2

 

  • City of Cape Town’s Electricity Department repaired Street lights in Willie Van Schoor Street and Sportica Street. 

CofCT repairing lights 2

  • City of Cape Town’s Storm Water and Roads Department reinstated a broken pavement at the corner of Edward Street and Bloemhoff Street. 

Repairing pavement 1 repairing pavement 2 repairing pavement 3

 

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TYGERVALLEY ID CCTV PROJECT – REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

The Tygervalley Improvement District (TVID) was established in 2016 after the Steering Committee took the initiative to seek solutions to the problems in the Tygervalley area.  Following the successful implementation of TVID as a Special Rating Area (SRA) the board has taken the initiative to extend the public safety operations to the next level by implementing a CCTV camera network.  The proposed intervention will focus on supporting the current public safety and urban management activities thereby contributing to securing the area and driving incidents of property related crime down. This will be achieved by implementing live surveillance of the public areas by means of a full-time monitored CCTV camera network.

Phase 1 of the project will focus on the implementation of 4 public surveillance cameras.  The implementation of additional surveillance cameras and LPR (Licence Plate Recognition) cameras at key access points to the area will be considered in future phases of the project.

Click here for the detailed Request for Proposal document.

All proposals are to be forwarded to Gene Lohrentz of Geocentric by no later than 16:00 on Wednesday 28 February 2018. Proposals can be forwarded via email to info@tvid.co.za.  You may contact us on 083 255 7657 to arrange delivery of printed documents should you also want to submit a hard copy submission. No late submissions will be accepted. Please do not include company registration documents etc.

Once the Board has evaluated all the proposals, a decision will be made on the successful service provider.  The decision of the Board is final and no further correspondence regarding the proposal will be entered into once the successful service provider has been appointed. The Board is under no obligation to qualify its decisions to any of the applicants.

All costs related to the submission of this proposal must be borne by the relevant applicants/companies/service providers and they shall have no claim for cost recovery to the Board and or its representatives whatsoever.

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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:

theewaterskloof dam, cape town, water crisis, drought theewaterskloof dam, cape town, water crisis, drought theewaterskloof dam, cape town, water crisis, drought theewaterskloof dam, cape town, water crisis, drought

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Plans in place for TVID security camera project

THE so-called cctv (closed circuit television) camera project that is being envisaged for the area by the TVID (Tyger Valley Improvement District) is on track as far as planning is concerned.

According to Gene Lohrentz of Geocentric this is a pilot project and is earmarked for implementation before 30 June 2018, pending all the necessary approvals.

He says initially four ‘PTZ’ (pan tilt zoom) cameras will be installed at the following general locations:

1. Edward Street
2. Durban Road
3. The Corner of Willie van Schoor and Bill Bezuidenhout Avenue
4. At the parking areas in front of Virgin Active and Mr Price Sport

The cameras will be linked via a “wi fi” link to a central location in the area and from there will be linked via a high-speed link to the TVID control room, where the camera footage will be monitored on a 24/7 basis.

Depending on an evaluation of the results of the pilot project and based on them, TVID plans to install further cameras in the 2018/19 financial year.

The value of the pilot project is approximately R 250 000.

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Tygervalley City Improvement District AGM 2017

TYGERVALLEI FINALDate:     2 November 2017

Time:     16:30

Venue:  Edward II Building, 76 Edward Street, Office 204, Oakdale                        Road (North Entrance)

Resolutions presented at the AGM can only be voted on by bona fide members of the TYGERVALLEY IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT NPC. This membership is available free of charge to all owners of commercial or industrial properties within the TYGERVALLEY IMPROVEMENT IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT SRA footprint, but they must be registered before 19 October 2017.

Please click here to go to our AGM page to download the relevant documentation

For further information  please call 083 255 7657

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