THE last Citichat reported on the external audit of the City's Charter Programme and drew a number of responses, each raising a list of issues, over and above those I referred to, on which no or little progress had been made.

Neil Fraser

One response concerned the Sectional Title Intervention pointing out that, after agreeing to run a pilot programme, choosing 10 buildings for the pilot and advising the occupants that a business plan would be produced by June 2009, nothing at all has happened and the programme appears to have been abandoned.

Another comment was raised in relation to the progress of the City Property Programme. So I was pleased to be travelling to Jozi to, among other things, attend the Inner City Forum meeting on Tuesday, 2 March and an opportunity to raise these issues. This is one of the reasons that this February newsletter is late!

However, while I was still in the air on the way to the city on Monday, 1 March, the mayor cancelled the meeting - which was scheduled for the second! For a meeting of that importance with a large number of people having cleared their diaries to attend, 16 or so hours is short notice indeed! The reason for cancellation was that a South African Local Government Association issue required the mayor's urgent attention.

One of the programmes which was to have been reported on at the meeting was, in fact, the City Property Programme. Which is what? Well, you may remember it originally as the Bad Buildings Programme then as the Better Buildings Programme. So, three name changes and three changes of departmental responsibility since its inception! These certainly don't appear to have expedited the process, in fact quite the opposite.

Bad buildings
In 1999, 11 years ago, the council approved a Proposed Programme on Bad Buildings and Other Buildings in Arrears in the Johannesburg Inner City. The idea behind the programme (initially dubbed the Bad Buildings Programme) was to provide a mechanism for dealing with buildings that were classified as "bad" for a variety of reasons. These included buildings that had been abandoned by their owners; were derelict or in a deplorable state; were invaded by crime lords and squatters; were overcrowded; contravened various by-laws and other legislation; were the seat of criminal activities, et cetera et cetera.

The City's overriding concern was that owners of such buildings were heavily in debt to the council through millions of rand in arrears in rates and service charges. The principle of the programme was that the council would acquire the buildings, and sell them on to a bona fide developer at a price that was equivalent to the debt owed to the council but, where appropriate, discounted to the market value of the building. At that stage, 122 buildings were identified within the inner city, mainly on the basis of outstanding arrears.

The programme proved to be great in theory, but in practice the process was found to be torturous. It took up to two years to accomplish the litigation and judgment alone and the worse the condition of the building and the higher the level of arrears, the more complex and time-consuming the process turned out to be.

There were also some fundamental conflicts between the various objectives of the programme and those of various departments. Thus, writing off arrears didn't sit well with departments targeted (and bonused) on collection of outstandings!

Objectives
The programme objectives of facilitating urban regeneration and improving the quality of life of low-income inner city residents was also often in conflict with private developers' objectives of obtaining a "fair return" on investment. The focus on debt recovery ignored the broader social and economic development interests and investment opportunities that were needed to achieve the regeneration objective.

These practical problems resulted in extremely few "bad" buildings among the identified 122, possibly less than 10 percent, becoming "better" buildings.

In 2002, the then newly established Inner City Regional Office took the step of establishing an Inner City Task Force comprising various City enforcement agencies. The job of the task force was to identify buildings that were contravening the by-laws or that were patently dangerous for habitation and to see that the owners were brought to book. The task force therefore set about methodically identifying buildings suffering from physical and social problems throughout the inner city region - in other words, the bottom line was to deal with buildings that were having a negative impact on the urban fabric thus effectively moving the imperative from arrears to regeneration.

It was a subtle but important change, although most "bad" buildings are also those in arrears! In the process, the number of buildings previously identified grew alarmingly, representing, at one stage, a book value of about R670-million of which no less than 85 percent of these were in arrears.

Property company
Because the revised programme also appeared to be in conflict with certain objectives of the housing department, responsible for implementation, the responsibility for the programme was transferred to the Johannesburg Property Company. The JPC established a dedicated implementation team whose target was to see that between 3 000 and 5 000 units (not buildings) be upgraded by June 2006.

In the longer term, this implementation team would also be responsible for "developing an agenda of policy and legislative items that were creating obstacles to the effective implementation of the programme", thus aiming at the revision of legislation and policy bottlenecks.

Sadly, the council official within the Johannesburg Property Company charged with the responsibility of the programme resigned from the council after approximately 12 to 18 months and the programme then spent considerable time leaderless.

It was then decided to transfer the operational authority to the department of economic development, which evidently believed that the programme as conceived would not provide adequately for aspects such as BEE.

Service provider
A service provider was appointed to assist in the formulation of a financial and structuring model for the programme, now to be known as the Inner City Property Scheme Project. The model was supposedly to result in:

• Increased flow of funding into the rejuvenation of buildings;
• Allowing BEE players access to new property opportunities;
• Effectively dealing with problems and challenges experienced by the Better Buildings Programme;
• Ensuring that occupants of decaying buildings are dealt with in a humane manner; and
• Ensuring some form of intervention is in place for transitional housing.

The service provider's report detailed methods of acquisition; model options considered for the scheme in terms of partnerships with the private sector; outlined a business model for the scheme, including the development of an SPV (Newco Property Co) to serve as the property development company, et cetera.

An advert for suitably empowered partners (with substantial financial means of R500-million or more) appeared in the press at least a year ago but since then - a deafening silence. I see that the independent report of the external auditors of the Inner City Charter for the period 2008-9 states that "this [the programme] has become a contentious matter for stakeholders and that limited reporting has been made available based on the sensitive and confidential nature of the information".

Hmmmm! Contentious it is because it rejected a previous process that had gone through its teething problems and was starting to work; evidently not honouring agreements struck in the earlier processes and severely delaying progress of a vital aspect of urban renewal/revitalisation. I look forward to the delayed presentation on this issue.

Fashion district
While on the issue of "bad buildings", I visited the fashion district last week and it and "bad buildings" seem to have an unfortunate relationship. Apart from Milton Court in Pritchard Street, which remains in a parlous state, and a few similar buildings, the backdrop to the low rise Fashion Square/Kapitol between Pritchard and President streets is a blighted high rise building in President Street which I believe is owned by the Kingdom of Lesotho.

The building is in a disgusting state, dragging down the whole urban character of the precinct that has taken so long to create. Why is this not being pursued? It has been decaying more and more with each passing year and will undoubtedly negatively affect interest in the fashion district.

Maybe the lack of enforcement of by-laws that obviously are being ignored is in the realms of remaining "politically correct" with a neighbouring government? Political correctness between the City and the Gauteng province and its legislature were part of the factors that led to the demise of the Rissik Street Post Office.

I was quite disheartened to see the Fashion Kapitol development to be in the same condition as when I previously visited it some months ago. I believe that some tenants will be moving in this week - just a couple of years behind programme! I understand that the lack of recent advancement is due to the council reneging on its final financial commitment as set out in the charter.

Yet this area shows the greatest "capital" return that any council could desire - for their investment of R35-million, nearly a billion rand of private sector investment has been attracted into the area, all on the promise of the charter but spoilt now by the City's apparent disinterest in this unique vision.

Rubbish bins
New waste bins don't make a cleaner city!

Walking around the centre of the inner city, I was amazed to see the appearance of a virtual rash of new refuse bins. We had new bins installed only a few years back! These appear to be glass- or fibre-reinforced cement outer shells on a heavy concrete base with a removable metal wheelie bin inside. Each bin offers two advertising opportunities so obviously involves some trade-off between the council and the supplier and to hell with more visual street pollution.

This is at least the fifth or sixth bin type provided over the past 10 to 12 years, imagine the cost - around Beyers Naude Square you can see all the previous models as they haven't been removed (including some of the last ones erected just a few years back, many of which have either been crushed - someone's idea of fun - or used for holding braais!).

I wonder how much research went into the choice of the new bins? They aren't displeasing in design though somewhat large, but I can see many doors flapping as refuse removal workers get tired of locking and unlocking the doors; the metal wheelie bins being ripped out while the lighter-weight upper sections get split from their heavy concrete bases by strikers/marchers.

And I wonder at their accessibility for children and physically handicapped persons. Whatever happened to the experiment to move refuse bins underground?

But new bins won't make the city any cleaner if waste management is irresponsible!

Flo Bird recently took a group of 52 people on a tour that ended at the Moth Obelisk. Having been assured that the area had been cleaned up, she writes: "Had I known that Pikitup would have failed so completely in its job, I would have cleaned it myself rather than end my tour with one of the worst examples of filth, stench and squalor there is in the city. Not a single cover had been replaced by the Johannesburg Roads Agency, every hole was filled with litter, swarming with flies.

"I had an Austrian lady on my tour who complained bitterly and justifiably. How can I tell people Johannesburg is a beautiful city? I bring them to this!"

And it's 87 days to the World Cup!

Regards, Neil

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• Charter chatter update
• Citichat
• Neil Fraser - passionate city man