NKRA Communique – April 2026

Hi everyone

The April NKRA monthly general meeting was held virtually by internet on 15 April 2026. The key issues arising from that meeting are included in this newsletter. Our next NKRA monthly general meeting will be held at 18h30 on Wednesday 20 May 2026. All residents, owners and employees in Killarney and Riviera are welcome to participate. A formal agenda with a Microsoft Teams meeting link will be circulated in due course.

Tree pruning

The mature jacaranda trees in the park were in serious need of pruning. They had not been pruned for many years, and some large branches had grown sideways to the extent that some trees were becoming unbalanced. With a lot of rain, the ground becomes softer, and a strong wind could drag the tree over. We have had two cases in the last few years where mature pavement jacarandas in 2^nd Avenue fell over, even though the trees themselves were both in good health, because the roots were not able to hold them upright anymore. There is also the risk that large horizontal branches could become overloaded by their own weight, and they could break off in a storm. This has happened recently too. There were also numerous dead branches on those trees, which could snap easily in a strong wind. These issues pose safety risks to people and to neighbouring buildings, and they also put the trees themselves at risk.

Johannesburg City Parks & Zoo (JCPZ) were unable to attend to these trees themselves, but they were willing to allow us to hire an outside contractor to do the pruning work, at our own expense. The project was approved by JCPZ for safety reasons only, and we were only allowed to trim the dead branches, and branches that were unbalancing a tree, and long “horizontal” branches that were in danger of snapping off in a storm. We were not allowed to reduce the height of the trees.

It was originally proposed to use the JCPZ woodchipper to grind up the cut wood, instead of carting away and dumping the debris, to save money and to generate useful mulch for the gardens. However, the JCPZ woodchipper has not been available for many months, and there was no indication of when it would become available again. Because of the various safety concerns, it was resolved at the NKRA meeting in March to proceed without the woodchipper, and instead to pay the tree feller extra to take the debris away.

The tree fellers worked for three full days, on pruning and on removing and dumping the debris. They arranged for two outside parties to remove truckloads of wood at no charge, and we gave wood to anybody who wanted it. We also set aside two piles of logs, to be used in future gardening projects. On top of that, the tree fellers still needed to make 10 trips to the dump over the three days of the project, to dispose of the debris. The final cost of the project was R23,500. The trees are much safer now, although they can never be totally safe.

We are now asking the JCPZ to attend to the various dangerous trees on our pavements, including one in 5^th Street which has died but is still standing, and one in 3^rd Street which has grown at a severe angle and has become seriously unbalanced. It may become necessary for us to attend to these dangerous trees ourselves, if we can get authorisation from JCPZ.

Pavement Repairs

Further pavement repairs have been undertaken by Charles and his team along 4^th Avenue up to the bridge over the motorway, excluding (for now) the pavement of St Johns Wood. The 4^th Avenue bridge is the only link across the motorway which separates southern Killarney and northern Killarney, and it carries a lot of pedestrian traffic, so we are giving the walkways over the bridge a lot of our focus and resource.

Once the serious pavement issues in 4^th Avenue have been completed, we will address the pavement in Newtown Road, and the damaged tarred areas in 2^nd Avenue outside Dukes Court and Gleneagles. The pavement outside Hatherley Hall in 4^th Avenue needs a lot of work, as do small patches at some of the intersections in 4^th Avenue. The trench on the 3^rd Street pavement was dug up by City Power, and hopefully they will come back to finish fixing this themselves.

The Thabo Mbeki Foundation, which is busy building the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Centre in North Avenue in Riviera, has committed to use their contractors to assist with pavement repairs, at their expense. They are busy compiling a plan and a schedule, and actual work will commence soon. This will help a lot.

These pavement repairs will continue to be our primary focus until all our busy pavements are reasonably safe. It has become clear that the Johannesburg municipality does not have enough money to fix everything that is required, and that increasingly the citizens will need to fix things ourselves. The municipal entities do occasionally undertake repairs in our area, but they often leave the roads and pavements unfinished, and sometimes quite unsafe. We are therefore trying to increase our repair projects to address the safety risks as fast as possible. This work is essential, but it obviously costs money. The NKRA currently has a substantial bank balance, thanks to our generous member buildings, and the members have previously approved an allocation to undertake these pavement repair projects of R60,000 – at R5,000 per month for twelve months. However, with a bigger monthly allocation we can obviously do more work, more quickly. It is thus proposed to increase this allocation to the pavement repairs project to R60,000 over the next six months, i.e. R10,000 per month. If we don’t need the full R10,000 in a particular month, then any “surplus” money will simply carry over to future months. If we do finally get permission to fix the potholes in the roads as well, then we will adjust our priorities and our financial allocations accordingly.

Municipal Street Repairs

The JRA have repaired a number of excavations and potholes, but there is much more still needing to be done. We have again offered to assist them with these repairs. Please would you all continue to report the various potholes and excavations in the roads to the JRA at hotline@jra.org.za or at 0860 562 874, and please ask for a reference number every time.

Municipal water pipe repairs are currently underway in 3^rd Avenue. However, there are still several water leaks in the area, some of which are very serious indeed – especially in Riviera Road near the corner of Oxford Road, in Oxford Road near the corner of Riviera Road, and in Anerley Road at the corner of Oxford Road. There are also leaks under the tar in Riviera Road, between 2^nd Avenue and 4^th Avenue, and two water leaks in 4^th Avenue near the corner of 3^rd Street. We continually report all of these issues, but Joburg Water is very slow to act. Please would all residents assist us by reporting all water leaks, on 011 688 1699 or 0860 562 874, or on the Joburg Water Portal at https://customer.forcelink.net/joburg_water/login.

Killarney Mall taxi rank and refurbishment progress

The Killarney Mall has been sold, but the various suspensive conditions are going to delay the transfer of ownership by a few more months. We have not been given any details of the conditions in question, or how long this process will take, but they say they should be finished before the end of the year.

Constitutional Amendment Proposal

A small group of people is proposing a “facelift” for the NKRA constitution. The constitution is working well, it is fully compliant with all the applicable laws, and it is not essential to change it. However, we are open to improving it further.

Ultimately, an amendment to the NKRA constitution can be made only by a resolution of a majority of the NKRA member buildings, where each member building has one vote. The wording of any suggested amendments will be developed by a group of volunteers, but the final decision on this wording will be made by the NKRA members in a future public meeting. The final wording of the proposed amendments will then be presented to all the NKRA member buildings, and each member building will need to decide upon their position. The voting by the members will be done at a Special Meeting using either a physical ballot or an electronic ballot, so that confusion can be avoided, and a record can be retained. Member buildings may support some of the proposed amendments but not all of them, so each of the proposed amendments will be voted on individually.

Safety and Security focuses

The risks of cell phones being snatched on pavements, and pick-pockets, are an on-going concern. We continue to ask all buildings to warn their residents and visitors not to stand or walk on the pavement with a phone or valuables in their hands. We are again researching the viability of using Vumacam cameras and monitoring to assist with this problem.

At the Community Policing Forum (CPF) meetings, we are asking for a police kiosk to be set up at the taxi area in 1^st Street, staffed by uniformed SAPS or JMPD officers, to deter the selling of drugs at this corner, as well as any other illegal activities and by-law contraventions. Private security guards have no authority on the street.

Vision Tactical Security have patrol cars in Killarney, and they are willing to react to all reports of criminal activity. If you notice any suspicious behaviour, you can contact the Vision Tactical Control Room on 084 222 2222, or on 061 071 2001, or on 010 972 2600. We thank Vision Tactical for this valuable community-minded service.

The City of Joburg has created a WhatsApp tipoff line, at 078 221 0419, for reporting all by-law contraventions, including noise and disturbances, drinking, illegal parking etc. Reporting of by-law contraventions must be done while the problem is in progress – there is no value in reporting it days later, when the problem has disappeared. Please include full details of the problem, and the exact location. Photographic or video evidence is also very useful.

In addition, our ward councillor Eleanor Huggett has offered to interface with JMPD on our behalf. Anybody who notes a by-law contravention can WhatsApp the details to Councillor Huggett at 071 785 8068. Once again, please include full details of the problem and the exact location of the problem, as well as also some photographic or video evidence to support your complaint if possible.

Killarney Parkrun

The Killarney Country Club hosts a 5km parkrun every Saturday at 8:00am. For the details, please go to https://www.parkrun.co.za/killarneycountryclub/.

The Friends of the Library – Killarney

The Friends of the Library in Killarney (FOLK) continue doing good work. They are also hosting various events at the library. You can interact with the FOLK, and get details of their events, at https://chat.whatsapp.com/KrYlArsPHSRAiyoGHerC0s

Killarney-Riviera Recycling Pilot Project

To help the “trolley-reclaimers” sort out and recycle any recyclable materials in our domestic refuse, the Killarney-Riviera Recycling Project has been established in partnership with ARO (African Reclaimers Organisation). ARO has provided us with green wheelie-bins in which we can accumulate all our recyclable materials, and ARO also undertakes to ensure that our area is left clean after they are done. You can interact with the Killarney-Riviera Recycling Project at https://chat.whatsapp.com/L1IlY4t9C837nVxp5oD8QW.

The Themba Cleanup/Upliftment Projects

The Themba Cleanup team continues to do regular cleaning and fixing around the area. You can interact with this project at: https://chat.whatsapp.com/KA4ejvnpF6pGjFg9SJ3KEn.

The Community Gardens project

The community food garden continues to expand. We acknowledge and appreciate the assistance of the group of learners from Parktown Boys High School, who again spent time helping to improve and expand the veggie garden in the park. You can interact with this project at: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Cjh3eJl57pv1XcoQ7OEBj9.

The community street walks

The community evening street walks are continuing. You can interact with this project at https://chat.whatsapp.com/CGOgiBZSRmhDNTq5BVdccU?mode=wwt.

NKRA Membership

The members of the NKRA are the bodies corporate of the area. Membership of the NKRA is voluntary, and this membership is renewed annually by the body corporate paying their membership “subscription”. The membership “subscription” is R50 per annum per each unit in the building (with a maximum charge of R4,000 per building). Only the representatives of the member bodies corporate can vote on resolutions, but all property owners, residents and employees of the buildings and businesses in the suburbs of Killarney and Riviera are welcome to attend and participate in our public meetings. 

So far this year, 32 buildings out of the 55 sectional title buildings in Killarney-Riviera are paid-up members – this is about 58% of the total. The list of the members currently is as follows:

• Berkeley Square
• Beverley Heights
• Biarritz
• Bolton Hall
• Brenthurst Court
• Castlerosse
• Christina Court
• Devon Place
• Dumbarton Oaks
• Earl’s Court
• Gleneagles
• Glenhof Court
• Greenhills
• Hampshire House
• Hampshire Mews
• Highbury
• Hillside Village
• Hyde Court
• Killarney Court and Gardens
• Killarney Hills
• Killarney Park
• Killarney Village
• Knightsbridge
• La Camargue
• Monviso
• Park Avenue
• Rapallo
• Riviera Mansions
• Riviera Villas
• Splice
• The Rivieras
• Whitehall Court

We thank all these bodies corporate for your on-going support, and we also thank all the various individual people who make personal donations as well. This funding enables us to undertake various projects, for the benefit of us all.

The Vision of the NKRA is encapsulated in our motto: “Safer, Cleaner, Better, Greener”. In pursuit of these strategic objectives, we currently focus primarily on the following:

• Reducing the various crime risks on the streets;
• Undertaking various projects, including repairing municipal infrastructure where this is allowed, to make the area safer and to improve our quality of life;
• Reducing the squatter and hawker and taxi and street-drinking problems;
• Building up a sustainable recycling project;
• Supporting community projects such as the Killarney Library, the community walking groups, the Cleanup/Upliftment project, and the community food gardens project.

If you have any specific ideas and suggestions to help us implement this vision, please do share them. We welcome all inputs, on all issues. We are also happy to receive photographs of any interesting things that are happening in our area, which we might include in future newsletters. If you wish to be added to the mailing list, to receive notices and agendas etc, please send an email to wdford@global.co.za. You can find our website at www.nkra.org.za, our NKRA Facebook page is at www.facebook.com/groups/1915871842042728, and you can link to our Community WhatsApp Group at www.nkra.org.za/whatsapp-link/.

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Our next NKRA monthly general meeting will be held at 18h30 on Wednesday 20 May 2026. All residents, owners and employees in Killarney and Riviera are welcome to participate. An agenda with a Microsoft Teams meeting link will be circulated in due course.

Please would you share this newsletter with all your neighbours in Killarney and Riviera?

Keep well, and keep safe.

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New Killarney-Riviera Association – www.nkra.org.za

Ward Councillor Eleanor Huggett – 071 785 8068 and eleanorhuggett@gmail.com

Service Delivery Reporting Template – https://www.nkra.org.za/issue-reporting-templates/

Link to Community WhatsApp Group – https://www.nkra.org.za/whatsapp-link/