Council slammed for not providing feedback

Cyrildene residents who attended a feedback meeting with council officials recently felt they were experiencing an evening of déjà vu.

Members of the community have been pleading with officials to address illegal activities such as illegal building, businesses, parking and overcrowding for years.

They said instead of taking action and compelling people to cease illegal activities, council allowed contraventions to continue to such an extent that it led to parts of the suburbs deteriorating drastically.

At a public meeting held early last year, officials committed to providing residents with feedback and said people would notice a positive difference.

Residents who attended the feedback meeting a few weeks ago, said it was a mirror image of last year’s meeting.

“This meeting was a waste of time. They repeated what they said at the last meeting and gave us no feedback on issues we raised. In a year and a half, there has been no improvement in Cyrildene. Council officials are beating around the bush and discussing the same things over and over. There was no positive feedback provided to convince us of council’s capabilities in reversing the deterioration,” said Mr Maurizio Galimberti, the chairperson of the Cyrildene Security Initiative.

Prior to this meeting, residents were asked to submit a list of concerns, on specific issues, to officials to enable the city to provide answers when they met with residents.

Ms Valda Gossmann, from the Bruma Residents’ Association, said council was skirting around the problems.

“They need to get to the detail, tell us what we want to know. What has been done and what is going to be done? All they do is talk and take no visible action. What progress has taken place since the meeting last year? Why discuss the same things over and over and not give us the feedback we have asked for? We were asked to submit a list of concerns prior to the meeting which I did before the deadline.

“We were told we would be given feedback on these issues yet there were no answers provided to us. This is why people are becoming emotional. No one in council is listening to us,” she said.

Mr Godfrey Mothibe, the chairperson of the Cleveland Community Police Forum, said he expected answers to questions about specific properties at which illegal activities are taking place. Some of these questions were asked at last year’s meeting.

Residents also submitted letters to officials highlighting all their concerns, however according to them, they never received responses.

“We believed there would be progress from the last meeting, however this seems not to be the case. We previously discussed the implementation of a precinct plan yet none of the officials at the last meeting were able to tell us the status of this plan,” said Mr Mothibe.

Residents opted for a precinct plan after they were advised that if implemented, it would address illegal activities such as illegal building and overcrowding. Once presented to the community, residents objected because it “seemed to be in support of those contravening the bylaws”.

Despite what residents said about the lack of feedback, Mr David Chamboko, the land use management manager at the Department of Development Planning, said feedback was provided on letters, lists and complaints about specific addresses.

In answers to questions raised by the EXPRESS about why officials did not come prepared to respond to concerns raised about specific properties that were brought to their attention, Mr Chamboko said officials were not furnished with matters the public needed responses to 48 hours prior to the meeting.

At the meeting held last year, Mr Rob Crawford from sector 1 crime forum, provided officials with information on illegal activities taking place at several properties.

He wanted assurance at that meeting, that council would stop the illegal activities. He said this would be a test to determine how serious council was on taking action.

Mr Crawford said not much has changed at these properties and he has not received sufficient feedback.

The EXPRESS questioned council about all these properties.

Speaking about one of the properties in particular, in Aida Avenue, Mr Nthatisi Modingoane from the City of Johannesburg said, “Our records indicate that building plans have been approved. Our building inspectorate is aware of the development and they are monitoring the site for compliance with the conditions of approval.”

He did not provide specifics about the other properties mentioned, however he stated that all matters raised at last year’s meeting were investigated.

“There were issues which required intervention from building control and town planning. The city can confirm that building control has since initiated the legal process, where it was deemed necessary. This feedback was provided,” he said.

He said prior to the meeting held recently, the former ward councillor, Ms Alison van der Molen, requested submissions of complaints to enable the city to investigate and respond.

“Regrettably, not all the invitees responded with complaints to be investigated and responded to in time. The difficulty with handling complaints of this nature is that the list continues to grow with all sorts of issues and participants in follow up meetings are not always the same people. The residents’ associations were requested to provide us with the properties they need to have investigated. That is yet to be sent,” he said.

@JoziReporter