Geocentric Launches New App

February 20, 2018 srbidcoz

“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!

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Urban Management Trolley Introduced

February 20, 2018 srbidcoz

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.

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SRBID plays Vital Role in Saving Water

February 20, 2018 srbidcoz

The Salt River BID plays a vital role in the efforts by all Capetonians to save water.

Quite often our patrol vehicles detect the leaking water meters and burst pipes in the small hours of the morning and through the SRBID Control Room alert the City of Cape Town as soon as possible.  This results in a quick reaction from maintenance crews but more importantly, vast amounts of wasted water are stopped from leaking away into the stormwater system because the City can act swiftly to shut off water supply and repairs can commence.

Often the only evidence of this vital work is the sandy patch in the road from the work done while the rest of us were fast asleep.

Picture: City Crews at work on a bust pipe with City maintenance team attending to the problem:

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SRBID making a Difference in the Area

February 19, 2018 srbidcoz

Thanks to the commitment of all who are involved in the Salt River Improvement District drive, much needed progress is being made in various ways.

Accompanying images tell the story of how problems like security issues, illegal dumping and the confiscation of stolen trolleys and wheelie-bins are successfully addressed by the teams.

The Public Safety issues that are addressed during the day-to-day activities, include problems related to the following: 

Illegal Dumping
Engaging with the public (public safety officers engage with all people in the public space to ensure that everyone is aware of the SRBID’s presence and activities. This is done in conjunction with and in support of the city’s law enforcement officers who oversee such activities. If something suspicious is found, the law enforcement agencies and/or SAPS act accordingly.
Bin scratching

CCTV in action 
Trolley and wheelie-bin confiscation

The Cleaning issues include:

Litter picking

De-weeding
Sweeping streets

On the Urban management side, the SRBID Management continues to log all urban and infrastructure defects as C3 notifications with the City of Cape Town for correction. The accompanying photos show the result of these actions as the City and other partners address issues.

Photographs:

Demonstrating the variety of activities that the ERCID engages in, sometimes in collaboration with teams of the CCT and law enforcement agencies.

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BAZ-ART PRESENTS THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC ART FESTIVAL IN SALT RIVER

January 17, 2018 srbidcoz

South Africa will experience its second annual International Public Art Festival (IPAF), a 9-day festival to be held from 10 to 19 February 2018, in the community of Salt River.

This second festival promises to yet again bring together an eclectic mix of artists from different continents, in one space for nine days, to paint beautiful, large murals for the public to observe and engage with the local and international artists. Each artist will be given a wall space in Salt River as they interpret this year’s theme of “Nature Doesn’t Need Us: We Need Nature.” Between 2017 and 2018, 80 murals would have been painted in Salt River.

The festival, is just one of BAZ-ART’s mission to use art as a fun outlet for social change, one community at a time and draw art lovers out into the streets. Attendance is free, but private guided tours by local certified tour guides and spray paint workshop hosted by our renowned SA artists can be bought from Webticket.

This year Baz-Art is partnering with IPAF Mexico and IPAF Canada. Thanks to the strong partnership with the respective embassies and the city of Cape Town, IPAF 2018 will see artists from a variety of genres and places coming from as far as Flanders, France, Ukraine, Finland, alongside a dozen local artists from South Africa.

Asked about why Baz-Art brought this annual event to Cape Town, organizer Alexandre Tilmans said, “Public festivals act as a creative vessel to enhance artists and make the communities stand strong together. This festival showcases the rich history, creativity, skills, diversity and style of South Africa’s public artists, as a result, we act as a platform for painting murals and billboards providing commissioned work to South African artists at a local and international level.” concludes Alexandre. The full artist line up can be consulted on Baz-Art and IPAF websites.

The International Public Art Festival in Salt River 2018 falls within the art month in Cape Town, with events such as the Cape Town Art Fair and That Art Fair, the week promises to explore various art forms, for a completely explosive experience in art immersion.

Tickets to the SPRAY PAINT workshops and GUIDED TOURS will be on sale from Webticket; keep an eye on Baz-Art’s Facebook page for updates.

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Cape Town Mayor outlines status quo of water crisis

December 7, 2017 srbidcoz

During a recent speech delivered at the Atlantis Aquifer, Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille thanked Capetonians who had been making efforts to cut their water usage, saying that about half of water users had restricted their daily usage to 87 litres per day.

But added that this was not enough. “We need each and every Capetonian and business on board as a partner on this journey,” she said.

“We are in an unprecedented drought crisis and this phase is critical because if the City and residents don’t do enough together and simultaneously, we will run out of water.”

She said the City was doing everything in its power to ensure additional supply, including finding and hiring the country’s best team of experts who were working 80-hour weeks with the metro to ensure that additional water could be brought ‘online’.

The Atlantis plant was one of several sites for alternative water sources which form part of the ‘Water Resilience Plan’.

The City of Cape Town had recently refurbished many of the boreholes around this West Coast area to increase the production of this plant. She pointed out that these boreholes formed a part of the City’s unique Artificially Recharged Aquifer System and said a lot of work had gone into ensuring an increase in the volume of water from this aquifer system.

Prior this work, the system had been producing around four million litres of water per day. “We have now increased the yield from this aquifer by an additional five million litres per day.”

The water is serving homes and industrial businesses in Atlantis, Mamre and Pella on the outskirts of the West Coast, which is quite a vast area. “So the additional capacity will be welcomed,” the Mayor said.

“This work demonstrates our commitment to addressing this current drought crisis. I repeat my commitment that I will not allow a well-run city to run out of water.”

She added that she had made it clear when the site of a new desalination plant with the V&A Waterfront had been announced: “we have a plan and we will supply water, but we need Team Cape Town to assist us”.

In the meantime, the City of Cape Town announced that Level 6 water restrictions will be implemented from 1 January 2018, which means that households using more than 10,500 litres per month could face fines and penalties. A proposal for a drought charge of between R45 and R2 800, depending on the value of the property, has also been tabled.

Take a look at these shocking images of the Theewaterskloof Dam looking more like a desert than a body of water:

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New Home for Zip Zap Circus Academy in Salt River

December 7, 2017 srbidcoz

The Zip Zap Circus Academy now has a new address in Salt River.

The two founders of the academy, Brent van Rensburg and Laurence Estève, officially opened their permanent premises with its striking building on Shannon Street a few months ago. There is much reason to believe that this new kid on the block has certainly been the talk of the town and will continue to be!

The academy was moved from its former venue in Founders Garden at Artscape on the foreshore to Salt River, where it is believed that a greater capacity will be accommodated, allowing for the growing outreach and youth programmes.

Zip Zap Circus was founded in Cape Town in 1992 to inspire young people and help to build a new diverse culture of peaceful coexistence in those troubled times in South Africa.

Work is conducted in varied communities with children and the aim is to develop a need for a “dare to dream” mindset, whilst fostering children to achieve the impossible. With the new building at 6 Shannon Street, Zip Zap Circus Academy will be able to enhance the programmes for the kids by awarding them the opportunity to participate in a state of the art environment.

It is easy to foresee that before long the place will be a like a beehive, filled with young energetic people running up and down shaping themselves for the future.

Apparently, the dome on the foreshore will continue to be used for performances, to conduct workshops, and to train professional performers. It will also available for hire for corporate functions.

Van Rensburg says ‘We have long dreamed of having a permanent home and our dream is finally becoming a reality. This is a great message for our young performers as we always tell them: ‘Dare to dream.’ Now they will see how our dream is coming true.”

The designer of the building, Y Tsai of Tsai Designs Studio, says: “The vibrantly painted academy captures circus magic in its structure. The centrally-located performance stage projects a theatrical atmosphere and the variety of rooms and spaces create the possibility for different learning experiences.”

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Facelift for Salt River forms part of upliftment plan

December 7, 2017 srbidcoz

As initially set out in the business plan of the SRBID, the work of the SRBID includes urban beautification. After initially focusing on crime and grime the SRBID reached a stage where some of the urban beautification projects could be launched.

Here’s a quick update on two of the programmes:

Poster removal and painting

Many of the lamp posts and street sign posts in Salt River had been very old and had either become rusted or had simply not received a coat of paint for far too long – until a team from the GROW Job and Life Rehabilitation Programme, employed by the Salt River CID, got stuck in and started introducing the much needed cosmetic touch-up operations.

GROW (‘God Restores Our World’) is the job rehabilitation programme of MES (Mould, Empower, Serve), a country-wide organisation which in turn has the vision ‘To change the heart of the city’ and the mission ‘To empower people holistically to live independent, sustainable and meaningful lives.

According to the MES website, the GROW Job and Life Rehabilitation Programme creates shift opportunities where cash is earned for work done, whilst being part of a coaching and developmental programme. It provides the homeless and unemployed community an alternative to aggressive begging and petty crime.

Participants in the programme are enabled by earning an honest income in cash, to restore their dignity, buy their meals from the MES canteen, pay for overnight shelter accommodation, apply for ID’s and even save.

In turn, GROW teaches participants to be diligent and disciplined, as well as empowering them with the skills to seek employment. The GROW programme is primarily supported through the occupational services provided to clients such as the respective CID’s.

In terms of the MES principles and the universal application of the Social Work Action Team concept, Geocentric offers this shift employment by using work teams for the beautification of CID’s. In the case of Salt River the teams are used predominantly for graffiti removal and for the painting of lamp posts and street sign poles. Many of the poles had also been defaced by illegal posters. “So, using specialised paint and our SWAT team, we have beautified all these elements,” says Geocentric general manager Ralph van der Brock. “The result is a clean and well maintained urban environment.”

Greening projects

Cape Town is currently experiencing one of worst and longest droughts and this would ordinarily place a halt to all beautification that include landscaping and greening initiatives.

However, Management company Geocentric decided to continue with beautification through the use of “potted gardens” rather than traditional landscaping work.

Large concrete pots were sourced from local suppliers in Maitland and placed at various locations in the SRBID

By grouping a number of these large planters together the impression of a potted garden was created. These pots are easy to maintain and even easier to keep watered – the contained environment makes it easy to keep the plants green with limited water resources.

Combining this with some hardy plants a beautiful green spot can be created.

Geocentric invested in a large number of water storage tanks before the recent winter months and harvested more than 80 000 liters of water during the limited rains that fell during the winter months

Now, using our custom built water truck, we are able to water our potted gardens with rain water harvested earlier in the year thereby sustaining our greening projects. We have competed three such projects in SRBID already and plan to do the next project in Yew Street Park

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Salt River Business Improvement District AGM 2017

October 4, 2017 srbidcoz

All members of the Salt River Business Improvement District NPC and all property owners of property situated inside the Salt River Business Improvement District SRA are invited to attend the Annual General Meetings to be held on 23 October 2017 at 16:00 at the Conference Venue, Double Tree by Hilton Cape Town, Upper East Side, 31 Brickfield Road, Woodstock where the following items will be discussed.

Please confirm your attendance / non-attendance by email to info@srbid.co.za.

Resolutions presented at the AGM can only be voted on by bona fide members of the Salt River Business Improvement District NPC. This membership is available free of charge to all owners of commercial and industrial property within the Salt River Business Improvement District SRA, but they must be registered before 9 October 2017.

If you are not the registered owner of this property, kindly forward this notice to the registered owner immediately.

THE AGM DOCUMENTS ALONG WITH OTHER INFORMATION CAN BE ACCESSED BY CLICKING ON THE LINK BELOW WHICH WILL TAKE YOU TO OUR AGM PAGE

Click here to go to the AGM 2017 page

For further information, AGM documentation and how to register go to www.srbid.co.za or e-mail info@srbid.co.za or call 083 255 7657

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Become a member of the Salt River BID NPC

August 6, 2017 srbidcoz

Membership of the SRA, which is a non-profit company registered under the Companies Act, is open to all the registered property owners who are encouraged to apply for membership so that they may exercise their rights to influence the business of the SRA. Membership cannot be denied to a registered property owner and as a member the property owner is entitled to attend, participate and vote at members meetings of the Company held under the auspices of the Companies Act.

Should a member be unable to attend they may give another individual their proxy to attend and vote on their behalf. Non-members may attend and participate at members’ meetings but cannot vote and as such may thus have limited influence on the SRA’s activities.

Membership application forms can be downloaded from the link below – once complete please send the form back to info@srbid.co.za

Click below to download the Membership Application Form