Ron Elvin, Camps Bay
I have been an owner/resident in Camps Bay for 14 years and am absolutely opposed to the formation of the CID. I have engaged with the SC by email and expressed my areas of concern. The response was polite, but the SC fall back on the “inflexibility” of the laws and regulations pertaining to the establishment and operation of a CID in Cape Town as a basis for negating my concerns.
Their premise being that there can only be one solution to the problems they perceive exist in Camps Bay: that being a CID.
The SC state that providing additional security will benefit all owners as they envisage property values increasing. But, if true, this has little real value to the long-term resident of Camps Bay. This is only beneficial for the seller of a property and or the developers and estate agents who stand to increase their profits.
For the normal resident who wishes to live and raise a family in Camps Bay, increased property value is a “paper profit” and in reality, only results in increased rates and taxes and increased CID levy. One can hardly describe increased rates and levies as a benefit.
The true beneficiaries of improved security, improved cleanliness, management of vagrants and the homeless, are the businesses that provide services to tourists and day visitors to the beach area… and those contracted to provide such security services and the management thereof as well as estate agents for sales as well as rentals.
So hotels, guest houses, restaurants, coffee shops, and grocery stores, and not residents, are the true beneficiaries. In presenting an image of a highly secure area there will be an increase in tourism. But the average resident sees little benefit and yet carries the burden of the costs of these services. The SC will however tell you that a CID cannot levy charges other than those based on property valuation, as per laws and regulations pertaining to a CID. The CID is entirely the wrong mechanism to address any perceived problems in Camps Bay if the true beneficiaries, business, are subsidised by you and me.
The ”hidden”, beneficiary is of course the City of Cape Town. If property values increase so do rates and taxes. If the CID provides services that should be provided by the City, then what incentive do the City have to do their job? Of course the City will encourage CIDs as a CID has tangible financial benefits to them.
The same response is given to the question “Why must I pay twice as much, in CID levy, as my neighbour simply because my house has been valued at twice as much as his. We both receive exactly the same benefit from the CID services, but I pay twice as much. To add insult to injury my neighbour has six people in his home and I two, so on a CID rate per capita, I am paying an additional three times compared to him. Why is this so? Because the CID levy has no other way of being calculated. CID is not an appropriate mechanism for Camps Bay.
As an “elderly” resident, I am unable to utilise the many benefits of Camps Bay that are readily appreciated by families with children, but there is no provision to rebate the levy for elderly residents. Why? Because there is no provision in the regulations for such rebates. The only rebates possible are as per rebates for municipal rates. It is highly unlikely that Camps Bay residents will obtain a rebate based on a means test. Again, the CID is an unsuitable vehicle.
I hope that other residents will oppose this proposal.
