NKRA Communique – May 2024

Hi everyone

We held our May NKRA public meeting via the internet on Wednesday 15 May 2024. The key issues arising from that meeting are included in this newsletter. Our next NKRA public meeting will be held at 18h30 on Wednesday 19 June 2024. All owners and residents of Killarney and Riviera are welcome to participate. An agenda with a Microsoft Teams meeting link will be circulated closer to that date.

It is very frustrating when pavements are dug up and are not properly reinstated. However, it does at least indicate that the municipality is repairing the pipes and cables. It is a pity that they don’t repair the pavements properly afterward as well, but it would be even worse if they stopped repairing the pipes and cables to begin with. The NKRA can repair pavements, but we can’t repair municipal pipes and cables, so we welcome these ongoing municipal repairs – even though they are very slow, and very far from perfect.

There is a new municipal initiative for repairing streetlights. Please use the following link to report any streetlight which is not functioning: https://forms.gle/zSwLHMFY2NAeFu187.

Municipal street and pavement repairs are happening very slowly, if at all. We are maintaining a register of outstanding issues, and we are sending this register to all relevant City officials weekly. We are also building up a list of potholes to be addressed by our own NKRA pothole repair project, which will happen soon. Please let us know about any problem pavement areas which can be fixed with asphalt, and we will add them to our list.

A group of residents have banded together to hire a cleaner with a bakkie (Themba), who drives around cleaning up and taking rubbish to the dump. This service costs R400 per day. We have tried to do this before, many times, and each time the missing ingredient was an affordable service provider who can also carry away and dump the debris. We have now found such a person.

The municipality has finally removed the huge tree stump in Anerley Road at the corner of 7^th Street. However they left the area looking very shabby, with huge weeds, and the ground churned up and unsafe to walk on. It was therefore suggested to reinstate this corner ourselves, to make it clean and safe. Themba is currently cleaning up this corner of 7^th Street and Anerley Road for us. One day we will also need to repair that steel fence.

This initiative is providing the basis for a community project where residents are taking steps to tackle similar issues. We are calling it “We All Love Killarney”, and the participants are thus known as WALKers (also as in We Walk the Talk). Already there are four sub-projects in progress, one with a focus on cleaning up the area, one to research fence repairs, one to address dangerous open manholes, and one to raise funding for projects. You can join our WhatsApp group at this link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/KA4ejvnpF6pGjFg9SJ3KEn

The NKRA already has a long-running project whereby a sweeper works five days per week around the area, picking up litter and emptying over-flowing pavement bins into plastic garbage bags. These bags he leaves on the corners at the bins, for PikiTup to collect. This sweeper is provided by RCS Security, at no charge to us. The project works well when PikiTup does their job, but we do sometimes have a problem where the pavement bins are emptied into bags, and then PikiTup fails to collect the bags for a long time. This can be addressed by a nearby building bringing those bags inside and putting them into their internal wheelie-bin system, so that the pavement outside is always clean. Some buildings do this already, but it would be great if all buildings would help with this please when needed.

Most buildings do clean their pavements regularly. The Mall also helps with street-cleaning around the illegal taxi rank. However, some pavements are neglected. We continue to ask all buildings to help the suburb by occasionally sweeping any nearby neglected pavements as well. We have had several such projects before, but they tend to fade out over time. The main problem areas are those pavements which do not border on any building, such as the entire northern verge of 7^th Street alongside the motorway.

The hawkers (and drug sellers) at the illegal taxi rank in 1^st Street are back to normal after the recent police raid. It would be very useful to have a camera recording their activities, because the police seem to react better if we can back up our complaints with photos or video evidence. It would also be very useful if we had a camera capable of recording the licence plates of the drive-through drug purchasers – if we can scare away the drug buyers, then the drug sellers will move away as well. Successfully addressing the long-standing security concerns in 1^st Street therefore requires additional cameras. The NKRA PZT camera at Daventry Court can zoom quite far along 1^st Street. We have asked the Killarney Mall to install an extra camera on their building overlooking the illegal taxi rank, monitored by their own internal security people. We have also asked Vision Tactical Security for quotes on cameras and the related monitoring service. Meanwhile we are trying to establish private security guards in formal guard-houses at various problem corners, paid for by the adjacent buildings, to provide extra deterrence to drug sellers and to deter law-breaking generally.

Concerns have been raised about a few people consuming alcohol and dagga in the park on Mondays and Tuesdays, when the park guard (Eric) takes his “weekend” days off. Most park users report that this is not a systemic problem, but it needs to be stamped out before it grows into something more serious. We request all park users to please keep their eyes open for this behaviour, and to obtain photographic or video evidence where possible.

We are attempting to get the Uber head office to help with the troublesome Uber drivers who congregate in 2^nd Street and 3^rd Street. Once again, we need photos and videos to provide evidence of transgressions – including specifically the car licence plates where possible.

We still experience incidents of cell-phone snatching on pavements. We will continue to encourage all buildings to put up warning signs, particularly aimed at residents and visitors who use Uber, as these people seem to be the primary targets. We have also received isolated reports of pickpockets, including inside the Killarney Mall itself.

Vision Tactical Security have patrol cars in Killarney, and they are willing to react to all reports of criminal activity. If you notice any suspicious behaviour, you can contact the Vision Tactical control room on 084 222 2222, or on 010 972 2600, or on 061 071 2001. Their two response vehicles are on 072 830 5305 from 8am to 10pm, and on 071 570 5173 from 10am to 10pm. We thank Vision Tactical Security for this valuable service!

The planning for the Killarney Mall refurbishment progress is not yet complete, and the Mall management have not yet presented a recommended solution to the taxi rank problem. They are meanwhile asking the community to suggest additional shops and facilities that we would like to bring into the Mall.

We are stalled a bit on our project to repaint the street names on the kerbs. We have the stencils, but we are still looking for painters willing to do the job. If you can recommend a painter willing to do a job of that size, please would you let us know?

Some buildings have a proper recycling service. Most buildings rely on the trolley-people to collect our recyclable waste items. Many buildings try to help them by sorting out the plastic, metal and cardboard to simplify and speed up this collection process. However the trolley-people generally don’t take glass, because it is very heavy for them to drag around compared to the other materials, which bring them more money per kilogram. We do however have a dedicated glass-collection bin located at the eastern end of 5^th Street – on the pavement alongside the Mall property. If you support recycling, please would you make a small effort to deposit your glass waste in this dedicated bin?

The municipality has repainted the road markings in Killarney again, which is really great. This adds a lot of value to the look of the area, as well as improving road safety.

At the time of publishing this newsletter, 33 buildings out of the 55 sectional title buildings in Killarney-Riviera have already paid their NKRA membership subscriptions for the year – this is about 60% of the total. The list of the members for 2024 so far is as follows:

• Berkeley Square
• Beverley Heights
• Brenthurst Court
• Bretton Woods
• Canterbury Close
• Castlerosse
• Chartwell
• Chelston Hall
• Christina Court
• Cranwell Hall
• Daventry Court
• Devon Place
• Dumbarton Oaks
• Earls Court
• Greenhills
• Hampshire Mews
• Hyde Court
• Interlaken
• Killarney Court & Gardens
• Killarney Hills
• Killarney Park
• Killarney Village
• Knightsbridge
• La Carmague
• Mentone Court
• Park Avenue
• Rapallo
• Riviera Mansions
• Riviera Villas
• Sloan Square
• Splice
• St John’s Wood
• The Rivieras

Many thanks indeed to all these buildings for your on-going support, and also to the various people who make personal donations as well. We are grateful for this support, which enables us to undertake projects for the benefit of us all. Most of our concerns can easily be fixed – it just takes money. If we had more money, we could do more projects.

Our motto is “Safer, Cleaner, Better, Greener”. Please let us know if you have any additional suggestions for future projects to be undertaken by the NKRA on behalf of the suburb. These are currently our primary focuses:

• Developing a register of pavements and potholes that need attention, and undertaking another pavement and pothole fix;
• Acquiring appropriate security cameras in 1^st Street;
• Managing the squatter and hawker and taxi problems in Killarney;
• Continually warning residents and visitors about crime risks, including the risk of pick-pockets and cell-phone snatching on the pavements;
• Undertaking community projects where possible, including the W.A.L.K. initiatives.

We are happy to receive photos of interesting things that might be happening in our area, which we might include in future newsletters. We also welcome all inputs, on all issues.

All interested persons can contact us at wdford@global.co.za to be added to the mailing list. Our website is at www.nkra.org.za.

Our next public meeting will be held at 18h30 on Wednesday 19 June 2024. All owners and residents of Killarney and Riviera are welcome to participate. An agenda with a Microsoft Teams meeting link will be circulated closer to that date.

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Please would you share this newsletter with all your neighbours in Killarney-Riviera?

Greetings to all, keep well, and keep safe.

Wayne Ford

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City emergency hotline on 011 375 5911

If you get no response from the patrol van, please call 10111

Councillor Huggett – by SMS or WhatsApp – 071 785 8068

JMPD call centre hotline number – 080 872 3342

JMPD Control Room – 011 758 9620

JMPD number to report Homeless People camping in the vicinity – 011 490 1538

JMPD number to report Illegal Dumping – 011 490 1684

JMPD number to report Noise Pollution – 011 718 9684

JMPD number to report Illegal Advertising – 011 490 1547

JMPD number to report Illegal Trading – 011 490 1744

JMPD number to report other By-Law issues – 011 490 1684