Sub-Committee Chair: Ina Roos – April 2022

ARRA had a very frustrating year regarding its efforts to preserve the residential character of the unique and conservation-worthy area, North of Stanza Bopape Street, on behalf of our members and the residents in the wider community have met with little success this past year. We are only aware of two instances in our area where the issue of ‘Non-Permitted Use’ (Differential Rates) by-law enforcement were actually enforced. Apart from the fact that this must represent significant revenue loss to CoT, it does not assist us in our mission. Very concerning is that, where our area was specifically mentioned in the previous Tshwane Regional Spatial Development Framework (RSDF) as a conservation-worthy heritage area, apart from Arcadia Street, we do not get a mention in the latest RSDF of 2018 at all. It transpired that the RSDF was developed without taking heritage matters into account. This is despite the fact that UNESCO is considering declaring the Union Buildings precinct a World Heritage Site.

Meetings with City of Tshwane officials

A meeting took place on 25 May 2021 with ARRA and several CoT officials of the Economic Development & Spatial Planning (EDSP) section of CoT. It was led by Modise Maimane, Divisional Head: Built Environment & Enforcement. It was decided at the meeting that ARRA would act as ‘guinea pig’ for Residents’ Associations in an effort to resolve land-use and building transgressions in specific areas. It entailed that:

ARRA each month submitted reports of properties that had been identified for property-use violations and

• building transgressions to one central point only;
• A time-line for responses was established;
• Responses to these were monitored at the monthly meetings;

Two follow-up meetings were held on the Teams platform. We discovered that the CoT’s data-capturing was incorrect in a number of cases, with the result that inspectors could not find the properties in question. The staff were instructed to present us with correct information. The last meeting regarding ARRA’s most pressing concerns was on 28 September 2021, again led by Modise Maimane. According to CoT, several issues on our list had been resolved, whereas ARRA did not agree that all of these had been resolved satisfactorily. Of the 28 contraventions discussed, 7 were resolved and 10 were awaiting follow-up action at Municipal Court.

On 28 September 2021, a ‘Talking Tuesday’ meeting with the Executive Mayor, Cllr. Randall Williams and
MMC Cllr. Bruce Lee took place specifically to address our frustration with the illegal land-use issues that keep going around in circles.

More problems: There have been three different acting heads of Built Environment for Region 3 in the year and Region 3 Building Control Offices (Enforcement and Building Plans) has been closed since December 2021 because they are moving offices. This dire matter has been reported on extensively in the media.