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1. TOWN PLANNING

Residents will be pleased to know that the town planning process discussed at the Open Meeting on 14 September is being aggressively pursued by the CRA Planning portfolio in conjunction with our appointed town planner, Craig Pretorius. 

Thanks to those residents who have contributed their views, the majority of which are supportive of the CRA’s process. All comments submitted will be considered by the CRA Executive prior to the final submission to the Joburg City authorities. 

As explained at the meeting, this is a vital issue for all of us who live in this area and it is extremely important that our views are conveyed to the City’s Planning people.
We continue to be inundated with applications for subdivisions, etc and the CRA is attempting to bring order to this situation through the approval of our planning process with the City.

Beaufort koppie: the CRA has just received the report of the Public Protector, who was originally approached by a resident concerned that the City Council was not following due process. In summary, the report commented that the processes followed by the Joburg Property Co were flawed and expressed concern about the extent that the Mayoral Committee recognised community participation, particularly as this is required in terms of the Local Government Municipal Systems Act. The report concludes that “the member of the Executive Council responsible for local government in Gauteng note this report…” and that the City Council should rescind the motion which agreed to the sale of the koppie. 

The CRA has not had any response from Council officials. However, if our actions help prevent future bad governance, then our time and effort will not have been wasted. 

2. SECURITY

Although crime has quietened down to a degree in our two suburbs over recent days, we continue to alert residents about their vulnerability as far as driveway robberies and housebreaking is concerned. This continues to be a problem and residents are advised to contact the Police if they see people on their streets whom they believe are possibly up to no good. 

Building activity (of which there is plenty in our area!) is often associated with an increase in crime. You have the right to approach a contractor to ask if the papers of all his workers are in order. If you are concerned, Parkview Police advise that you can contact the North Sector Manager Const Mukhuwane at 082 829-7609 (office hours) who works with Captain Knoetze (011 486-5050). 

Alert – proactive crime surveillance project – volunteers needed!
CRA Chairman John Turpin is looking for 10 volunteers (preferably male but not necessarily) from Craighall/Craighall Park who would be prepared to use their car, accompanied by one or two other residents and a policeman to tour the two suburbs during November, December and January. 

The plan is to have four cars operating for two hours on a Thursday night between 18:00 and 20:00 (around Christmas and January, a Wednesday night). People may be apprehended during the surveillance period - this will be handled by the policeman in your car. Would anyone prepared to assist with this project over this critical period please contact John Turpin on 011 325-4547 ASAP for further details. This is all to do with the development of Community Policing. 

Once again, we ask residents to use 10111 when making contact with the Police as this is the most efficient way for their concerns to be passed on to the Parkview Police and, more importantly, their police vehicles.

Be extra careful with your security arrangements over this end-of-year period as there is often an increase in opportunistic house break-ins. See our security check list on our website - www.cra.org.za/security_check.htm.

3. MEMBERSHIP

The CRA is putting together a 2006 Membership Drive under the direction of Jill Weldon. With all the activities your Association is involved in, we would very much appreciate your support for the coming year. The current membership subscription of R150 (with a 50% reduction for pensioners) has been in force for some years. Benchmarking our fee against many other residents’ associations and noting that the CRA is judged as one of the most proactive in Johannesburg, the Executive felt it was time to raise the annual subscription to R200. Hopefully residents will feel that this is money well spent and the more participants we have, obviously the more representative we are of the two suburbs in dealings with the City authorities, etc.

4. TRAFFIC

Your Association is attempting to deal with the parking and speeding problems around the Spar supermarket at the corner of Lancaster and Clarence. We have got together with Metro Police and Joburg Roads and they are investigating the question of illegal parking and speeding in that area.