Efforts to make Green Point a safer place to live, work and play are continuing.
This was heard at the Green Point City Improvement District’s (GPCID) annual general meeting on Thursday December 5.
Delivering the chairman’s report, Marc Truss, on behalf of Deon de Wet, said the area had grown into leaps and bounds, bringing billions of rands of investment to an area that was once a combination of partially empty warehouses, small cottages and a mixed-use business community.
The GPCID was formed in 2001 with a mission to cleanse the area and reduce crime. Their role is to work closely with all role-players, in order to provide supplementary assistance in terms of security, cleansing, social intervention, upgrading and improving public spaces between buildings.
“One would think that after 18 years in service, we would be able to sit back and just steer the ship as it sails on doing what many think is just mundane tasks that keep the area in tip-top shape. That’s not the case as we need to be constantly on top of our service delivery ensuring that the area is clean and safe,” he said.
The CID sweeps roads in the area and removes street refuse, taking away almost seven tons of refuse per month. They have their own law enforcement officers who try to educate members of the public who defy the law.
“Together with the Oranje-Kloof City Improvement Districts, our law enforcement members have written a total value of over R11 million in fines over the past 12 months,” he said.
Mr Truss said they work with the police and other law enforcement agencies and although they have kept crime incidents down quite considerably, crime doesn’t just disappear. “It will still be around, just in lesser quantities because of how we approach these very acts of criminal intent. We apply our minds, we share and act on information, we initiate operations, crime-free evenings and we have a constant presence of uniformed officers patrolling the area,” he said.
Sharing their highlights, the meeting heard that among others, there were more than 15 000 fines that were issued to the value of just above R11 million, of which the City collects 26%. They heard that there were 122 crime incidents that were reported this year, down from 154 last year. There were 50 traffic and parking related incidents reported compared to 59 in 2018.
“We could do so much more to uplift our area of jurisdiction if only that the City’s leaders could take note of what potential is out there by having a CID or as they call it special ratings area, for them to take charge and deliver a world-class service, something that few cities can claim to,” he said.