The NKRA is grateful for the support provided in the 4th Street park by our park sponsors RUSSELL FISHER PROPERTIES and VISION TACTICAL SECURITY and the KILLARNEY MALL, and for the street cleaning services provided by RCS SECURITY SERVICES.

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NKRA Communique – July 2022

Hi everyone

Recycling our rubbish is vitally necessary to protect the environment. In addition, many people all around South Africa make a precarious living by sifting through our rubbish and collecting material of value, including from the wheelie-bins on our pavements before PikiTup arrives to collect it.

Recycling companies buy a variety of waste material from the trolley people, including glass, plastic, cardboard, paper and metals. The going rate for scrap steel is around R1 a kilogram, but aluminium can fetch R20 per kilogram. For clear plastic cold-drink bottles, the recyclers will pay around R7 per kilogram. It requires about 30 of these bottles to make up a kilogram of plastic. Glass is valuable but heavy, so most of the trolley people won’t take it, and we therefore have separate glass recycling bins, operated by the recycling company.

We can easily and cheaply support recycling by separating our rubbish ourselves, before it goes into the wheelie-bins, and then making the valuable material available to the trolley people in a separate pile so that they don’t need to sort through our garbage out on the pavement. This would directly contribute to the protection of the environment, as well as reduce the amount of litter which we might subsequently have to sweep up off the ground afterward.

On a related note is the issue of E-Waste. Electronic equipment often contains toxic metals such as lead and mercury, which can get into the air and the groundwater, and cause serious illnesses. Disposing of broken or obsolete electronic equipment is therefore environmentally problematic. We have been informed about a company called Kaysetters Recycling, who will apparently collect all unwanted electronic equipment such as computers, music systems, televisions, printers and photocopiers, as well as factory machines and even scrap metals. They do not charge to collect, and they make their money just by recycling the material. If you have any such equipment that you wish to dispose of, you can perhaps contact them at ewaste@kaysettersrecycling.co.za.

The various excavations on our pavements have still not been reinstated. In addition, many holes in the streets have not been repaired either. The coalition municipal government made grand promises, but their service delivery is only as good as their operational managers, who seemingly are very poor indeed.

For all service-related queries such as potholes, Pikitup bins, technical queries on electricity or water, grass cutting or general service queries, you can now contact the municipal Call Centre on 0860 562 874 to ensure your query is channelled to the relevant department for resolution. Please would everybody please keep reporting these issues, and always ask for a reference number.

Unfortunately, unidentified parties have been smashing our public dustbins – in 1st Street at the illegal taxi rank as well as in 7th Street at the illegal hawker site in the parking lot. If anybody has cameras covering either area, please would you review the footage regularly to see if you can identify the culprits? Those bins cost us thousands of rands.

We continue to ask all buildings please to help by cleaning up litter and weeds on pavements or in gutters, including leaves, as this adds a lot of value to the suburb. When litter is allowed to accumulate, it seems to encourage people to drop additional litter in that vicinity as well.

We note that the Chartwell building is continuing to expand their pavement garden in 3rd Street, which is looking amazing, and which uplifts the entire suburb. Many thanks once again to Jaco and his team for these efforts. J

The informal Uber waiting area in 3rd street continues to pose regular problems. The Uber drivers are legally allowed to use and park in ordinary parking bays, like any other motorist. They are obviously NOT allowed to cause a disturbance, or to litter or urinate etc in the streets. Our approach with Uber has been to record instances of bad behaviour on film, and then to complain to Uber head office. Uber is sensitive about their brand, and so hard evidence of bad behaviour by their drivers while they are “on duty” might get a response. We also need to comply with the POPI Act when we use film from security cameras.

In general, loitering on public pavements is NOT an offence, and people are allowed to stand around on public pavements all night provided they do not cause an obstruction or a disturbance, or break any other laws such as drinking alcohol. If any loiterer is causing a problem, then we need to call the police or JMPD, who do sometimes respond. In addition, the SAPS do occasionally run “operations” in Killarney, and in the past month they have confiscated alcohol and warned illegal drinkers. They apparently also spoke to the taxi drivers, who told them that the drinkers are local residents, rather than taxi passengers or drivers.

Here is a photo taken by a resident, showing illegal activity taking place in 7th Street. The councilor has been informed, and has promised to push the JMPD to investigate. Please would the residents in that part of the suburb keep an eye on progress? Photographs are always useful in helping the authorities to understand the problem.

A lot of our problems are caused by the illegal taxi rank in 1st Street. We are working with the municipal Planning Law Enforcement department and the Killarney Mall to achieve improvements to this situation, but the problem is not easy to fix, and this is taking a lot of time. Solving this problem is vital to the future of Killarney, so we will persevere.

We have received a handful of suggestions for the NKRA to resume holding physical meetings. This will require us to find a venue other than at the Mall. If any building has a suitable venue and is willing to make it available to us for one evening per month, please do let us know. If not, we will probably need to hire a venue somewhere. Alternately, we have also had suggestions to start holding virtual meetings over the internet. I asked for feedback on this issue last month, and about four people responded in total. Please would you all share your views on holding virtual NKRA meetings over the internet?

Thus far, 39 buildings out of the 55 sectional title buildings in Killarney-Riviera have paid the 2022 membership subscription to the NKRA – this is about 71% of the total. Many thanks indeed to these buildings for your on-going support. The current list of the members for 2022 is as follows:

  1. Berkeley Square
  2. Beverley Heights
  3. Biarritz
  4. Brenthurst Court
  5. Bretton Woods
  6. Canterbury Close
  7. Chartwell
  8. Chelston Hall
  9. Christina Court
  10. Cranwell Hall
  11. Daventry Court
  12. Devon Place
  13. Dumbarton Oaks
  14. Earls Court
  15. Gleneagles
  16. Glenhof Gardens
  17. Greenhills
  18. Hampshire Mews
  19. Hyde Court
  20. Interlaken
  21. Killarney Court & Gardens
  22. Killarney Hills
  23. Killarney Park
  24. Killarney Village
  25. Kingsborough
  26. Knightsbridge
  27. La Camargue
  28. Mentone Court
  29. Monviso
  30. Park Avenue
  31. Portofino
  32. Rapallo
  33. Riviera Mansions
  34. Riviera Villas
  35. Santa Margherita
  36. Sevenoaks
  37. Splice Riviera
  38. The Rivieras
  39. Whitehall Court

If your building does make a membership contribution, please ask your managing agent to include your reference number as well, so as to facilitate the allocation of the payment on our side. Thank you also to the various people who make personal donations as well.

Please would NKRA members give us feedback on the various issues described above, and especially on the proposed resumption of physical or internet meetings? We also welcome all suggestions from all residents, on all issues.

Best wishes to all, keep well, and keep safe. J

Wayne Ford