Drill Hall burnt down in April
	DEVELOPMENT

Making Hillbrow more 'feminine' The Hillbrow/Berea Regeneration Initiative, launched in March 2001, aims to develop a sense of "community" as well as a vision and an action plan for the regeneration of Hillbrow and Berea. Funding is being supplied by the American aid organisation USAID. A makeover for historic Kliptown THE Gauteng Provincial Government and City Of Johannesburg will jointly give more than R375m towards the renovation of Kliptown, the city's oldest all-race settlement, steeped in political history.

Slumlords are the new Jo'burg focus May 13, 2002 By Thomas Thale FOLLOWING a spate of fires which gutted some of the landmark buildings in the city, the city of Johannesburg has vowed to clamp down on slumlords who sublet derelict and unsafe buildings to desperate, homeless people around the city. Amos Masondo, the executive mayor, this week declared that bad buildings and slumlords will now be his new area of focus. Central to this new initiative will be the identification and prosecution of slumlords. "Building Inspectors and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) will comb the City and conduct a block-to-block inspection as part of our focus on bad buildings and slumlords. We have a list of known slumlords and firm action by the police will be taken against them as part of our focus," the city said in a statement. Kgotso Chikane, the mayor's spokesperson, said once information on bad buildings and slumlords has been gathered, the Metro police will conduct block by block raids of all buildings in the inner city. "The establishment of municipal courts in June will enable us to speed up the prosecution of slumlords," Chikane said. According to Chikane, this crackdown will be an ongoing campaign and the council will also consider taking civil action against slumlords. Five people were killed when the historic Drill Hall caught fire last month. Another building, Remington House, was gutted by fire last weekend. The council has confirmed that the building had been illegally occupied by people who had moved in at the instigation of a tenants committee. The committee had been collecting a R250.00 levy from all units, but had failed to pay rates to the municipality. "The Tenants Committee is currently under investigation," the council statement said. RELATED ARTICLES: Squatters evicted from vandalised Hillbrow building Jo'burg moves in on derelict buildings Five burnt to death in Drill Hall inferno Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400