Gerd Behrens, Camps Bay
Much has been written about the merits or demerits of a City Improvement District (CID) for Camps Bay.
Little has been written about the vote by which property owners will say Yes or No to a CID.
The vote will not be organised by an independent entity but by the Yes party – the Steering Committee (SC) that campaigns for a CID.
The SC will also count the votes and announce the results. Just imagine the ANC (and not the Independent Electoral Commission) organising next year’s general elections, counting the votes, and announcing the results.
The results of the CID vote will be verified by the City. Can the City be considered impartial when the CID levy provides it with additional income? It is generally accepted that for elections to be deemed free and fair the election management body must be both independent and impartial.You’ll be the judge whether that is the case here.
Spencer McNally, Camps Bay CID Steering Committee chairperson, responds:
Mr Behrens’s concerns regarding the process by which the proposed Camps Bay CID would be established are misplaced, in particular because the process of “voting” in relation to a CID is not analogous to voting in a general election.
The procedures surrounding the establishment of a CID are governed by various laws, notably the Local Government: Municipal Property Rates Act, 2004, the Local Government: Systems Act, 2000 and the 2023 City Improvement District By-Law. In addition, the City of Cape Town has produced a detailed policy relating to CIDs.
The law provides that the decision on whether or not to determine a CID rests with the Council. The Council may not determine a special rating area (CID) before it has obtained the “consent” of the majority of members of the local community who will be liable for paying the additional rate.
Each owner must complete a consent form prescribed by the Council. Collection of consent forms is of necessity not a secret ballot because the consent form lists the details of the owner, which can be easily verified against the ownership data that the City has on record for each property.
The Steering Committee is tasked with assisting in the collection of the consent forms, but these are sent to and verified by the Council against its ownership database.
Technically, therefore, residents are not being asked to vote, but rather to consent to (or to oppose) the determination of the CID.
Unlike in an election, the City is not obliged to comply with the “votes” exercised by the residents. The City makes the final decision and whilst they cannot determine the CID if the minimum percentage of consents is not obtained, they can refuse despite that minimum being obtained.
Consequently, the determination of the CID is an ordinary decision of Council, rather than any form of election or referendum.
The City’s decision can be taken on review in the same way that any decision of the Council can be reviewed. Consequently, should the City approve a CID for Camps Bay, and should any stakeholder have an issue with such approval, then they would have remedies.
While a general election requires complex logistics to record and verify millions of votes cast on a single day, the recording of consents for the Camps Bay CID establishment process will involve only 2 000 or so forms that will be collected over a period of many weeks.
Verifying these votes against the database of properties is a trivial exercise. A closer analogy would be the voting process for a Special Resolution proposed by the Trustees of a large body corporate, where apartment numbers, owners and their votes can be cross-referenced to ensure veracity.
No independent electoral commission is therefore required for the proposed Camps Bay CID and the process is demonstrably “free and fair”.
