Camps Bay CID approaching approval phase

According to the Camps Bay CID Steering Committee, there are just under 2 900 properties in Camps Bay that could vote on the establishment of the CID. Of these, little under 200 are non-residential or commercial properties, with the rest being residential.

“67.9% of Camps Bay property owners voted in favour of the CID, with only 3.5% voting against. This is an amazing show of support, with more than 95% of votes received cast in favour. The Steering Committee thanks all supporters and volunteers, and looks forward to taking the Camps Bay CID live as soon as possible after formal approval by the City of Cape Town, which is expected before the middle of the year,” said Spencer McNally, chairperson of the Camps Bay CID Steering Committee.

Mr McNally noted that the objections submitted throughout the voting process are generally regarding the costs of the CID.

“Complaints about the fairness of how the costs of the CID will be shared between property owners and/or the mechanism by which CIDs are funded. For example, some people believe that commercial properties should pay a lot more than residential properties, or that setting individual contributions by reference to property valuations is unfair and that everyone should pay the same amount,” he said.

He added that some people objected on the grounds that they already pay a lot in rates and taxes and that they therefore shouldn’t have to pay more for services that they should already be receiving.

“These people generally felt that the City should simply be pressured into improving service delivery and/or that volunteers could plug the gap. Leaving aside the fact that (outside of a CID) there are no resources for doing as they suggest, hoping that service delivery will magically improve is not an effective strategy, and reliance on volunteers has historically proven unsustainable,” he said.

Mr McNally says that the CID SC sympathises with genuine affordability issues and will assist impacted households in seeking rebates or exemptions in instances of genuine hardship.

The CID SC must now respond to any appeals lodged, and the complete application will be examined by the City Council once received, according to Ward 54 councillor Nicola Jowell.

“The Camps Bay CID Steering Committee has been working at what must be a record pace to undertake the work required to submit their CID application to Council. We have recently received the news that they are over the required threshold for votes in support of the establishment of a CID in Camps Bay. The process to establish a CID is a lengthy one, and carefully managed and regulated by the City's CID office who have oversight that all steps of the process are adhered to and that there is full compliance to the legislative requirements,” said Ms Jowell.

A Camps Bay resident, Chris Marshall says that a request to audit the results of the votes is facing resistance from the City officials.

“Camps Bay ratepayers have recently been asked to vote on a special rating area (or CID) which will cost them an additional R30m per annum at least. The (self appointed) Camps Bay CID steering committee employed clever ambush marketing techniques to promise voters that the suburb would be overrun by criminals and indigents without a CID,” said Mr Marshall.

“The City of Cape Town (CoCT) provided the committee with detailed personal information of each potential voter, but a request for similar data in order to communicate and discuss alternatives to the CID was denied by both the CoCT Head of Special Rating Areas and the CID steering committee.

“The desperate, if undignified, desire of the committee to climb onto the public sector gravy train might be understandable, but the invocation of the Protection of Private Information Act to deny others access to the information by CoCT is not. Therefore no meaningful discussion was possible prior to the vote,” he said.

According to Chris von Ulmenstein, the founder of Camps Bay Clean, the process to establish a CID divided the community.

“The approval of the Camps Bay CID by a majority of its ratepayers will hopefully lead to a more cohesive community for the good of Camps Bay again,” Ms von Ulmenstein.

“The CID will not be able to control the presence of nor attacks on residents by street children, nor the increasing number of vagrant structures in our suburb,” she says.

Ms von Ulmenstein hopes that the CID will find a way to incorporate Camps Bay Clean into its efforts to keep the suburb clean.