By Jonews Reporter
RESIDENTS of Johannesburg and other interested parties have until Thursday 17 July to submit applications to have the existing boom gates in their suburbs, declared legal.
The Johannesburg council announced in April that residents of boomed suburbs would be given three months in which to apply to have their booms legalised in line with the new policy on gated communities.
Council's policy on road closures, application forms and other related documents, are now available on this website [in Word format].
- Policy on road closures
- Application form
- Declaration to accompany the application
- Specifications
- Procedure
- Schedule of fees
- Definition of road classes
The City of Johannesburg made the decision to remove existing boom gates around the city following a long process of consultation overseen by a panel of experts appointed by the City, with various interest groups across the city.
"After carefully considering and evaluating these issues, the panel concluded that the long-term impact of security access restrictions is not desirable and therefore should not be encouraged or promoted in the City of Johannesburg," Masondo said when the announcement to remove the booms was made in April.
In reaching their conclusions, the panellists were guided by considerations of safety and security, property values, urban functionality, traffic, constitution, legislation and social and economic issues.
Recommendations by the panel did however, provide for the city to put in place, "a process to consider applications for security access restrictions" and for the approval of some applications under "exceptional circumstances" as prescribed by the Gauteng Rationalisation of Local Government Act No 10 of 1998. The Act confers on the city, the power to process applications for road closures.
Applications will only be considered for the closure of roads, which are "local distributors, cul-de-sacs or access-only streets".
Applicants are required to submit a traffic impact study confirming that traffic flow will not be disrupted or displaced by the closures. Roads which handle heavier traffic, will not be considered for closure.
Other conditions stipulate that closures must have the support of 90% of residents, may not cause vehicles or pedestrians to incur lengthy, time consuming diversions, may not interfere with access for emergency or maintenance vehicles and must have adequate signage.
The city currently has a backlog of 300 applications to process. Applications for security access restrictions will be processed by the Johannesburg Roads Agency. The final approval will come from the Executive Director of Development Planning, Transportation and Environment.
For further information contact the Johannesburg Roads Agency at:
Tel: 011 298-5000
Fax: 011 298-5178
Website: www.jra.org.za
