By-law enforcement and education

Issue:

The urban management structures and systems developed within Region F will provide for an integrated approach to the enforcement of by-laws as well as national legislation typically enforced at the local level. An integrated team of by-law enforcement specialists, seconded from various departments, will be established in the Region F Inner City Office as a co-ordinating force.

This does not mean the consolidation of all available by-law enforcement capacity in the Regional offices, simply improved sequencing and alignment of enforcement efforts through a coherent perspective on the unique circumstances prevailing in different parts of the inner city.

Enforcement capacity (in terms of personnel, vehicles, equipment etc) will remain in a range of different departments/directorates, including the Johannesburg metropolitan police department (By-law Enforcement Unit), building control, environmental health and Emergency Management Services.

It is important that this capacity continues to grow in response to the challenges presenting in the inner city. At present this capacity is not optimal:

• There has been a large turnaround in staff in recent years, which sometimes means a lack of experience in the processes and procedures of applying by-laws;
• Staff capacity has not grown to match escalation in the challenge, which makes regular, everyday enforcement difficult;
• In some cases circumstances have changed, resulting in a situation where the available body of legislation and by-laws are no longer the appropriate instruments to deal with the circumstances, as they currently exist.

In addition prevailing conditions on the ground often make it difficult to apply by-laws in traditional ways. Many building owners have abandoned their buildings, leaving it unclear who is responsible for management. Many people living in the inner city are unaware of the by-laws.

Many are also without identity numbers and fixed addresses, making it very difficult to issue and follow-up on notices and fines. The Municipal Court has not functioned optimally as a result.

Desired outcome:
In line with changing circumstances and an escalating challenge, the City of Johannesburg will grow and refine its capacity to enforce by-laws and the national legislation that it administers.

Through a zero-tolerance approach to more effective law-enforcement, as well as education and creative mechanisms that make it easier for owners and residents to comply, the City aims to achieve a culture of compliance in the inner city where infractions are an exception rather than the rule.

Commitments:

• By March 2008, the City of Johannesburg will have reviewed all relevant by-laws to ensure an easily understood and easily applicable body of law appropriate to the circumstances in the inner city;
• By June 2008, the City will develop inner city specific popular media and signage that clearly communicates key by-laws that must be obeyed;
• Starting June 2008, and by March 2009, the City of Johannesburg, together with a range of stakeholders, will roll-out a comprehensive by-law education programme across the inner city.
• This will be followed up with targeted measures to alert people to the law in key locations, and smaller campaigns on an annual basis;
• Together with other stakeholders the City will develop a range of creative alternative mechanisms to punish by-law infringements. This may include the introduction of satellite courts;
• By December 2007 the City will have finalised a by-law enforcement capacity development plan with specific attention paid to the requirements in the inner city. This plan will be rolled out over the three-year period. By December 2010, the City will have fully capacitated all its by-law enforcement functions in various departments;
• In the interim, the City will immediately augment by-law enforcement capacity in key departments. Enhancements to be implemented by March 2008 include:
  • - The employment of more staff in environmental health;
  • - The enlargement of the JMPD by-law enforcement team dedicated to the inner city, and the leasing of additional vehicles; and
  • - The development of systems in Emergency Management Services to monitor fire-safety risks in bad buildings.

Visible policing

Issue:
There is evidence that where policing capacity is constrained, visible ‘bobby-on-the-beat' policing is not necessarily the best use of scarce resources, since other measures may have a greater effect in bringing down levels of reported priority crimes.

Nevertheless, the importance of visible on the street policing is emphasised in a context where a real or perceived lack of safety on the street has a major negative impact on further investment in residential and commercial property, on after-dark economic activity especially in the service sector, and on the utilisation of public spaces and community infrastructure necessary for an acceptable quality of life of a growing inner city population.

Police visibility is especially necessary at known hot spots of crime, places of repeated by-law infractions and traffic bottlenecks. Visible patrols are similarly required during peak periods along major pedestrian movement lines and around transport nodes. The same applies to public facilities such as parks and squares throughout the day. This will require a significant increase in police resources for on-the-ground policing.

It is recognised that neither the SAPS stations nor JMPD currently have the staff or vehicles to undertake this intensive form of policing, either in vehicles or on foot, even in areas identified as crime hot-spots. JMPD's contingent of staff and vehicles for Region F is stretched to cover an area far south of the inner city, is also taken up with traffic management responsibilities, and is frequently called upon to manage safety and security at major public events.

Desired outcome:
Resources for both the SAPS and JMPD will be systematically increased over the next three years, so that by 2010 a highly visible ‘bobby-on-the-beat' policing system can be institutionalised in the inner city.

This system will ensure a permanent policing presence, day and night, in high-priority areas. While focused on deterrence of street-level crime, the system will enable faster and more predictable reaction times to any and all reported crime incidents. Improved communication and interaction with CID guard corps, private security companies and community policing initiatives will be a cornerstone of this visible policing system.

Commitments:

• The number of JMPD officers dedicated to the inner city will be increased to at least 750, and the number of JMPD vehicles to at least 100 by March 2010.
• The number of SAPS officers and vehicles dedicated to patrolling the inner city will also be increased systematically, with numbers still to be determined.
• JMPD and SAPS will each institutionalise a system of visible on-the-street patrols. In the case of JMPD this will be institutionalised by July 2008 and with increased resources will be scaled up systematically to March 2010. Capacity will be focused on a number of key hotspots.
• Through the CCTV control room an effective platform for communication between SAPS,
• JMPD, the CID guards and private security operations will be established by March 2008.
• Using Neighbourhood Improvement Districts as the organising mechanism where appropriate, a system of voluntary Community Patrollers will be institutionalised in priority residential areas by end of 2008. Building on Community Policing Forums and Sector Crime Forums where they exist, and also utilising Neighbourhood Improvement Districts where appropriate, this will be linked to a system of street and block committees established by the SAPS.

Surveillance technology

Issue:
Safety and security in the inner city rests on effective behind the scenes and visible on the street policing. Comprehensive coverage of inner city streets by closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) adds significantly to the ability of law enforcement agencies to combat crime and bolsters public perception of safety and security. The CCTV infrastructure established prior to 2007 had a marked impact on both levels of crime and public perception of security. However, the previous arrangements did not cover a large enough geographic area; did not optimise response rates and times to detected incidents; and did not fully achieve possible integration between public and private CCTV systems.

Outcome:
To reduce incidents of crime and enhance perceived safety and security on the streets of the inner city on a 24/7 basis the CCTV network will be upgraded through a new contracting arrangement.

The new arrangement will see significant improvement in geographic coverage as well as reaction times to incidents detected. The new CCTV system will be based on digital technology, enabling much ‘smarter' law enforcement (including, for example, through number-plate recognition), urban management and by-law enforcement, traffic management and disaster mitigation and management. As far as possible and desirable the system will be integrated with existing private CCTV systems. Private- and public sector partners will also be able to ‘buy into' the system to meet their specific security or service monitoring requirements.

Commitments:

• By June 2008, the City of Johannesburg will double the network as it existed in 2006/7 by installing 216 cameras in and around the inner city. The network will cover a wider geographic area than the pre-existing system, with a spread of cameras, but priority will also be given to the location of cameras at entry and exit points to the inner city, public spaces such as parks and squares, transport termini, crime hot spots and high-risk areas from the perspective of key economic institutions such as banks.
• The network will be further extended in future years to ensure full coverage of the inner city by 2010/11.
• The network will be manned 24 hours a day by a control centre containing officers from the JMPD and SAPS.
• Within 90 days of the tender being awarded, a committee containing representatives from the City, the SAPS and the private sector will negotiate with the preferred bidder to define a process and costing for linking existing private CCTV networks to the City's network, as well as for potential new entrants that would like to ‘buy into' the network. This will include details on costing and ownership of cameras, monitoring costs and arrangements, etc.
• The JMPD and SAPS will provide dedicated response capacity on the ground to respond to incidents picked up on the camera network. JMPD will commit 6 cars and 48 personnel by December 2008.
• By end September 2008, JMPD and SAPS will negotiate a protocol with key registered private security companies to enable their guards and response vehicles to also respond to recorded incidents where appropriate.

Bad buildings

Issue:
So-called bad buildings have become a major challenge in the inner city of Johannesburg. They are a concern from the perspective of:

• Crime prevention since they are often utilised by criminals as bases for operations;
• Health safety (A lack of water and sewage services in occupied buildings creates potential public-health time bombs);
• Fire safety (Illegal connections of electricity and sub-standard wiring poses a major fire risk.
• Water disconnections often leads to tenants hacking into fire hydrants, and circumstances where there is no water in apartments to deal quickly with fires if and when they start);
• Urban management more generally, since grime and waste generated within bad-buildings spills out onto the street;
• Sustainable rates and service charge revenue for the City, since the conditions that lead to a lack of investment in buildings are the same conditions that impact on payment practices, and since building decline negatively affects property values and economic investment in the area.

To date the City's response to bad-buildings has often been reactive and had often resulted in a situation where evictions of residents seems to be the only feasible way forward. A new system is required to detect bad-buildings as soon as they start to decline and to proactively deal with conditions in these buildings in an integrated multidisciplinary way that solves root problems.

Desired outcome:
The City will eliminate all bad-buildings in the inner city by 2015.

To achieve this, the City will scale up its Better Buildings Programme (see Residential Development Section), but also institutionalise a proactive approach to detecting and dealing with potential problem buildings. This will combine regular inspections; strengthening of tenant associations / body corporates; targeted by-law enforcement; innovative approaches to improving health and safety in buildings.

Measures will include approaches to creatively reconstitute collapsed/collapsing payment arrangements, including for instance putting buildings under administration where landlord and tenant relationships break down to the extent that the building poses major revenue risks to the City and major health and safety risks to the community.

Commitments:

• By December 2007 a multi-disciplinary team will be established in the Region F Offices. The team will include capacity from the SAPS and the City's municipal owned entities.
• By March 2008 the City will review all by-laws and procedures to ensure that an integrated approach to managing bad buildings can be undertaken with all necessary legal instruments.
• By June 2008 the City will integrate all current database and mapping systems utilised to detect and track bad buildings.
• Progressively, but with a final deadline of end-June 2008 the team will develop a portfolio of measures to deal creatively with problems in bad buildings as they emerge. As part of this portfolio the City will explore various options to contract directly with tenants, to introduce new technologies that more effectively provide for restrictions while allowing end-user households to still receive constitutionally guaranteed allocations of free water, and allocations of free electricity as per current policy, etc. The portfolio will also include enhanced legal recourse to enable the City to pin-point and deal with culprits who act outside the law in fragile payment / service delivery arrangements, including perpetrators of fraud who seek to hijack payment arrangements, slum-lords, individuals who tamper with restricted service-delivery infrastructure, etc.

Disaster management

Issue:
The inner city is the hub of South Africa's financial system. The headquarters of three major banks are all located within a radius of approximately 1km in the centre and southern quadrant of the inner city. These institutions are supported by a network of operations, all in close proximity, enabling data-processing and inter-bank settlements averaging approximately R70 billion per day.

Financial institutions share the inner city with other economic institutions of critical importance to the national economy. These include key insurance companies; transport and logistics parastatals, firms and operations; and the headquarters of a number of global mineral-resource companies. In all more than 33 000 highly-skilled professionals are employed in the area.

The day-to-day operations of all of these institutions are dependent on continuous, stable provision of telecommunications, electricity, water and sanitation supply services. Should any major disaster strike the inner city, and/or any of the networked infrastructure services in the inner city be seriously disrupted for any length of time, the business continuity of these key economic institutions will be jeopardised, with potentially major consequences for the South African economy as a whole.

It is also recognised that the inner city is home to an increasing population, many of whom are extremely vulnerable residents living in high-rise apartments that are not well maintained. Any disaster incident that strikes across the inner city may potentially lead to a major loss of life because of these circumstances.

Desired outcome:
Recognising the national economic importance of the inner city, and the potentially serious consequences that any disruption to normal business activity in the inner city may hold for the national economy as a whole, as well as the vulnerability of large numbers of people in dense high rise apartments, the City of Johannesburg will work systematically to anticipate and prevent any and all disasters that may occur.

Working together with all stakeholders, it will further enhance its capacity to manage and mitigate the effects of any disasters should they occur in order to ensure business continuity of key economic institutions, and to minimise after-the-fact impacts on the population.

Commitments:

• Within the City's evolving Disaster Management Plan the critical importance of the inner city to the ongoing daily functioning of the national economy will be recognised. Building on the work of the Strategic Interest Group, a standing Stakeholder Working Group with representatives from key private and public sector institutions within the inner city will be established. In consultation with this Group, priority disaster prevention, management and mitigation plans and actions catering specifically for the inner city will be developed and incorporated into the City's Disaster Management Plan by June 2008. These plans will make recommendations in respect of appropriate institutional arrangements, special prevention and protection measures, required by-law and service system changes and improvements, and any essential upgrading of key network infrastructure.
• The inner city has a relatively permissive town planning scheme, which makes it possible for owners to alter land uses without a formal rezoning application. Nevertheless, the City will investigate measures to strengthen future development frameworks, spatial plans and planning approval processes in ways that will help prevent activities that may in future exacerbate disaster risks in the area. Specific suggestions (for example the circulation of building plan applications in key risk locations to disaster management specialists within the City prior to approval) will be proposed by December 2008 and implemented as from 2009/10.
• Within the process of developing public open space, detailed in Section B.2 of this Charter, new public open space will be developed in the south and south western part of the inner city to cater explicitly for emergency evacuation and recovery of personnel from the key economic institutions in this area, as well as the effective deployment of emergency and relief responses, in the event of disasters. These public open spaces will be developed by June 2010.
• To improve disaster risk quantification and analysis a GIS-based electronic incident register will be developed to capture all significant breakdowns in public-service delivery. This disaster management information system will be integrated into the electronic Urban Management systems described above.

Other key safety and security issues dealt with in other sections of the Charter:

1. Street trading / micro-retailing: See Economic Development section

2. Taxi-ranking: see Transportation section

3. Transportation and traffic safety: see Transportation section

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