• From Saturday 1 December 2018, water restrictions and the associated tariffs will be lowered from Level 5 to Level 3 recovery restrictions, which includes increasing the daily usage from 70 litres per person per day to 105 litres per person per day; or from 500 million litres to 650 million litres of collective usage per day
• Tariffs will also be lowered to Level 3. If for example residents use less than 6 000 litres per month (Step 1) they can expect to pay 35,5% less
• This decision follows on from the National Department of Water and Sanitation’s latest water assessment
• Restrictions remain on a fairly strict recovery level as a precaution to deal with rainfall uncertainty in 2019 and 2020
• We encourage Cape Town’s water ambassadors to maintain their water-wise approach during the recovery phase and as the metro moves towards becoming a more water-sensitive city in the near future
• The 40% restriction on water usage applicable to businesses has been removed but the sector is strongly encouraged to continue implementing and investigating the further efficient use of water in their operations

The City of Cape Town’s water users can expect a considerable reduction in the cost of water to be reflected in their municipal invoices from next month. This is due to the lowering of water restrictions from Level 5 to Level 3 recovery restrictions from Saturday 1 December 2018.

The City views 2019 as a recovery year after having successfully emerged from the unprecedented drought.

This decision to lower restrictions comes after a meeting between the National Department of Water and Sanitation and the water users of the Western Cape Water Supply System, namely the agricultural sector, Western Cape Government, municipalities and the Cape Town metro regarding the water assessment for the year ahead.

Based on National Government’s assessment of the hydrological year, a saving of between 10% and 20% for urban water users has been proposed. However, the City has decided to implement a more cautious 30% saving to help with the recovery of the dams and to cater for the uncertainty that exists around rainfall volumes and frequency in 2019.

‘I want to thank all the residents, officials, and visitors to Cape Town who played their part in helping us get through one of the worst droughts this city has ever seen. While the drought is not yet over, we have seen that there is room to bring some relief to our residents. I know it has been tough and I hope that this reduction in tariffs will bring some comfort over the festive season. We will still need to be water-wise though, as we do not know what the next rainy season holds.

‘We are no longer in a period of extreme scarcity, but it does not mean that we should forego some of the great water-wise ways that we have made a part of our daily lives – and for which we have become world famous. We are situated in a water-scarce region and the water-wise efforts and ways to diversify and augment our water supply should and will continue.

‘If one looks at international drought experience, water restrictions are either implemented too late or lifted too early. Hence our decision to take a conservative approach to the recovery while we continue to monitor the situation,’ said the City’s Executive Mayor, Alderman Dan Plato.

The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services; and Energy, Councillor Xanthea Limberg added: ‘We see 2019 as a recovery year after having successfully emerged from the severe and unprecedented drought. Based on our own assessment, we are following a conservative approach in the light of rainfall uncertainty over the coming two years. These Level 3 recovery restrictions are also a measure to help support the great change we have seen in the relationship that we have with water while, at the same time, providing some financial relief to residents and businesses. This is not only a period of recovery for our dams, but also for our economy as a whole as well as for our residents and businesses who truly made huge sacrifices to help us get Cape Town through the drought.’

Due to the extreme economic and rural hardship that has been suffered as a result of the drought, the agricultural sector will only reduce water usage by 10% as it too enters a period of recovery. The City fully supports this move as the agricultural sector also supported the City as an urban water user during the height of the drought.

Please see the following links for information on:

• Level 3 restriction guidelines: http://bit.do/L3-guide
• Level 3 water and sanitation tariffs: http://bit.do/L3-tariffs
• Level 3 overview: http://bit.do/L3-overview
• Level 3 FAQs: http://bit.do/L3-faqs

DMI Guideline Series – A5 flyer

Full information (content of the booklets) can be downloaded from the following link :

http://www.capetown.gov.za/Family%20and%20home/City-publications/publications-and-reports/building-planning-and-development

Response Officers Lumko and Lennox RV-216 informed control about three abandoned puppies that had been dumped opposite Weavewell business premises. The Response officers confirmed that the Security Officer Arama at Coleman Business Park had informed them of the abandoned puppies. 

Wendy of SBCA 24hour Animal Rescue Services was contacted on 083 326 1604 and confirmed they had only one vehicle available and that the driver was at that stage occupied. Mr Lohrentz was informed via telephone of the situation. He later confirmed that he had contacted Mr Houston at Emplast business premises in Elsies River to find out if Mr Houston could help by maybe keeping the three puppies at his place for the night. Mr Houston agreed that the Response Officers could bring him the puppies. 

Wendy was subsequently informed that the puppies would be safe for the night and where they would be staying. She then confirmed that she would be able to send her driver the following morning to collect the three abandoned puppies. 

Response Officers proceeded to drop off the three abandoned puppies at Mr Houston’s premises. 

Geocentric as the Management Company or the ERCID has taken the bold step to introduce live operational statistics to all its CID contributors.  With our Mobile Reporting App and our “State of the Art” management system we can update our operational data direct to the ERCID Website.

By simply going to our ERCID Statistics page you will have live, up-to-date information of the work we are doing in the ERCID.  As data arrives from the field into our management system, relevant statistics will automatically update on our ERCID website.

Operational data is shown in three different formats including “counters” (this shows the number of incidents of a certain type), Graphs and Maps.  The map data displays the location and clustering of specific types of incidents depending on the theme of the map. You can even look back in time using the date filter on the page.  The dashboard will always show the accumulated information for the current month.

We believe that our ERCID property and business owners and our ERCID users should have the ability to see what we are doing and be informed daily.

You can also stay in touch with incidents and alerts within the ERCID by downloading the Mobile Reporting App.  It Is available from both the Apple iStore and the Google Play Store for iOS and Android devices.

CITY OF CAPE TOWN

20 MARCH 2018

STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S EXECUTIVE DEPUTY MAYOR, ALDERMAN IAN NEILSON

Let’s keep our water-saving focus, Team Cape Town

As at Monday 19 March 2018, our collective consumption over the past week was 565 million litres of water per day. Unfortunately, usage has increased by 54 million litres per day from last week’s record low of 511 million litres per day. Nevertheless, we are confident that our water users will again shatter water use records in the weeks ahead. Read more below:

Our dam levels have shown only a slight decline of 0,3% to 22,7% . This is the lowest decline in dam levels this year to date. This can likely be attributed to somewhat lower evaporation rates and small amounts of rainfall, especially in the Steenbras Dam area.

We will continue to monitor the water usage trend to see whether the increase in consumption is a once-off occurrence or whether there is another underlying reason that would need to be addressed.

Level 6B water restrictions are still in place. Water pressure reduction remains in place, water management devices continue to be installed on the connections of high water users and the bills based on 6B tariffs are reaching consumers. It is essential that we all continue to save water.

All water users are reminded that the City is still required by the National Government to reduce water usage to 450 million litres per day in order to stretch the available water supplies through the rest of the year. This equates to a reduction of 45% from normal usage. We are currently hovering at just below a 40% reduction. A sustained collective push is now required to reduce consumption by just 5% in order to achieve our target.

We will continue to drive our initiatives to reduce water consumption. This will include advanced pressure management, the installation of water management devices at the properties of high water users and proactively implementing advanced water restrictions and associated tariffs to encourage behaviour change.

If all Capetonians join us by keeping their consumption down to 50 litres of water a day, or less, we will avoid having to take more drastic actions.

Please visit www.capetown.gov.za/thinkwater for all water-related information, including Level 6B restrictions and FAQs about Day Zero as well as tips to lower usage even further.

“As Geocentric we are very proud to launch our new mobile phone reporting application,” said Gene Lohrentz of the urban management company recently. “This is another way in which we are enabling our CID business and property owners to interact with their City Improvement District Management. 

“We want our CID contributors to become part of our family by interacting with us about issues they might encounter.  The mobile application makes that possible on the devices most people have with them every day.” 

The Geocentric app allows users to easily report issues in the City Improvement Districts managed by Geocentric Urban Management based in South Africa.  Currently the areas covered by this Application include Beaconvale Industrial Area, Elsies River Industrial, Glosderry, Maitland, Salt River, Somerset West CBD, Stikland Industrial, Strand CBD and the Tygervalley CBD.  

With this application, users can report urban defects, crime incidents, public safety issues and general comments.  “We will acknowledge your report and provide you with feedback throughout the process.  We will also send you ‘Alerts’ of problems in your CID area, such as water leaks or power outages and we can even send crime alerts and safety tips to your mobile phone. 

The Geocentric Reporting Application is Free of Charge 

Simply install it and register as a user when using it for the first time.  If you need any help, please contact support@geocentric.co.za 

Let’s get started! 

• Simply download and install the App from the Google Play or Apple App Store  
• Register as a user, using the app when you open it for the first time 

• We will send you a confirmation email and you will have to activate your app by clicking on the activation link in the email – this is to ensure we are dealing with people and not spammers. 
• Go to your email and verify your email address 
• Log in and you are ready to go! 

The Geocentric Urban Management Trolley Project was initiated in 2017. 

The aim of the project is to provide urban cleaning and maintenance teams with a platform to improve their daily tasks, assist with moving of equipment and tools and enable recycling while performing their tasks. 

A few design considerations were introduced into the design of the trolley including 

• The ability to move heavy loads of litter or recycling from one point to another without effort or potential injury 

• Create high visibility for the cleaning and maintenance teams 
• Have quick and easy access to tools and equipment 
• The ability, even when fully loaded, to easy ascend and descend kerbs and sidewalks 
• Be able to separate waste as they work to support the recycling initiative 

To achieve some of these design principles, Geocentric looked at simple solutions from other designs, for example, the stair-climbing suitcases used by so many travellers.  By scaling up the design for the urban management trolleys, we could produce a sidewalk and pavement climbing trolley where the urban management worker needs minimum effort to get onto and off pavements to perform their duties.  

(See photos of step 1, 2 and 3 illustrating this concept.) 

The trolleys were also designed to be pushed from any side with key tools located in the middle so that it is in fact easy to use it for a two-man team operation.  On each side of the trolley a plastic tool box allows storage for small tools. 

Recyclables like tin cans, glass and plastic bottles are collected by the urban management workers throughout the day as they clean the streets and public spaces and at the end of each day they separate the items into baskets whereafter Geocentric recycles the items. 

This is another way in which we make CID operations more sustainable and environmentally friendly as we prevent a vast amount of waste from simply going to landfills. 

Geocentric have rolled out these trollies in the Elsies River and Beaconvale City Improvement Districts and plan to roll them out to all the other CIDs under Geocentric management through the course of 2018. 

A statement was received on 14 February 2018 regarding the new housing development that is earmarked for Elsies River, on the premises of the old so-called ‘Double D’ factory. 

Here is the communication received directly from the developer: 

“E-Junction Property Developers has finally received plan approval on the security village planned for Elsies River Industrial.  The development will comprise 2-bedroom apartments for the rental market only, becoming available at ± R6,500/month. 

“Construction is expected to start in the second quarter of 2018 with a projected completion date towards the end of 2019.   

“A special word of thanks and admiration towards the Parow Municipality’s planning office for the outstanding and professional service during the approval process of this development, and to the members of the Elsies River CID, for their continued patience in the process of making Elsies River a desirable neighbourhood again. 

“With over R200m being invested in this project, it stands as a strong statement of confidence in the ever-brightening future of Elsies River and surrounds.”