Neil Fraser
February 3, 2003
For some years since the promulgation of the City Improvement District Act, various residential areas have been covetously eyeing some of its provisions. In particular the provision that extends the liability for payment of the CID levy to all properties within a proposed CID area once the majority of property owners (representing the majority of the rates base) have voted in favour of the application and the local authority has approved the establishment of a CID.
Probably the first such residential application in Gauteng was to the Pretoria City Council some years ago which was turned down on the grounds, as I understand it, that (a) the Act was not intended for suburban areas and (b) the application was heavily weighted towards security provisions and was not therefore an 'urban renewal intervention'.
On Thursday the Johannesburg Council turned down their first residential application - but resolved to find a mechanism to assist the applicant to achieve its aims. The application was supported by a 67.75 percent "yes" vote which represented 85 percent of the numbers of votes cast.
The issue is an interesting one (and certainly emotive) as both sides, applicant and local authority, feel that there are strong if not overwhelming reasons to back their points of view. There is little doubt that the legislation was not drawn up with residential areas in mind, I know this because I was part of that process. Nor is the legislation aimed specifically at safety and security which may or may not be a part of the needs of an area.
I think of CIDs as 'focused economic regeneration initiatives' but recognise that one often has to deal with the 'crime and grime' element before moving more directly into the more sexy urban upgrading aspects. However, the actual wording of the Act, apart from its titles' emphasis on 'City', is rather open to interpretation. It defines a "city improvement district" as "a geographic area" which is rather loose!
Many residential areas, and particularly those some distance from the Metropolitan core, are under constant pressure and attack from criminal elements. They are too sparsely served by the police yet have little in the way of legislation to assist them in organising protection so one should be sympathetic to their needs. We have had an extensive period of waiting for Council to declare unambiguously their philosophy towards road closures and in such a scenario one cannot blame residential communities for turning to whatever legislation is available that might bring some relief to their problems even if the legislation wasn't meant for them in the first place!
In my opinion, a CID type of organisation lends itself to implementation rather than merely acting as some sort of home-owner pressure group where words are more numerous than action. It becomes a focus point for dealing with issues quickly and effectively.
I had breakfast this week with a gentleman who heads up a 'voluntary CID' in the suburbs that provides a 'traffic warden activity' at peak times that has greatly assisted in resolving nightmarish traffic congestion. During the municipal workers strike they were able to react immediately to accumulating refuse by collecting and removing it. There are many aspects of residential community living that could be enhanced through a CID approach.
However I am very clear that trying to establish residential CIDs is extremely difficult. Residential areas include apartment, town-house, sectional title and cluster developments that often take care of their own needs and are not keen to have to pay additional levies for what happens outside their complexes. In addition, residential areas contain many units for letting and tenants do not have the same desire to maintain an asset base as the property owner might have.
Often there are vacant or undeveloped properties that are owned by the local authority itself or by property owners not willing to pay costs over and above their rates. Rather shortsighted as CID activities would enhance their investment but that is human nature. For example, the area covered by the application turned down by the Council included 130 empty properties which represented 19 percent of the total number of properties in the area.
What we clearly need is appropriate legislation to cater for residential needs that takes all of these issues into account.
We aren't the first city to face these issues and to develop parallel legislation for residential areas. In the state of Pennsylvania, where a number of highly successful Business Improvement Districts operate ('The Center City District' in Philadelphia is something of a model for all involved in BIDs/CIDs!) two new state (provincial) laws were passed in 1998 and 1999 respectively which allow for the creation of 'neighbourhood improvement districts'(NIDs).
Any improvement district, commercial, residential, industrial or mixed, must abide by one of these two laws. Subsequent to the enactment of the legislation, three NIDs have been established, Roxborough, Passayunk and Mt Airy. But whilst called NIDs they actually only include commercial properties and function like the nine commercial BIDs in the city!
Appropriate local NID legislation in fact could well be merely taking the existing CID legislation with some fine tuning related to scope and probably voting percentages.
All this reminds me of a great learning opportunity for those involved in cities. The Director for the Gauteng Department of Development Planning and Local Government at the time of the promulgation of the CID legislation back in 1997 was Rolf Dauskart. Rolf subsequently left the Provincial Government and took up a position with the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (HIS) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The HIS are to run a Post Graduate Diploma course in Inner City Revitalisation and Urban Heritage from 29 April to 18 July. "The course is particularly suitable for professionals who address the problems of rebuilding inner city areas and heritage management." The bad news is that the three-month course costs Euro 5 500 but the good news is that there are a limited number of fellowships that will cover this cost. I have details of the course if you are interested so e-mail me or contact the HIS directly on HIS
