NKRA Communique – November-December 2025

Hi everyone

The November NKRA monthly general meeting was held virtually by internet on 19 November 2025. 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 21 January 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.

The year 2025 is the centenary year of Whitehall Court. To commemorate their centenary, the present owners and residents of Whitehall Court have funded a beautiful and functional art-gate at the eastern entrance of the Killarney park in 2^nd Avenue – directly across the road from Whitehall Court. The art-gate was created by Killarney resident James Delaney, and it complements the existing James Delaney art-gate at the western entrance of the park.

The Whitehall Court building was constructed by I.W. Schlesinger, a New York entrepreneur who became a leading businessman in Johannesburg. Among many other things, he founded the Killarney Film Studio on the land where the Killarney Mall stands today, and he built Whitehall Court adjacent to the Film Studio. Many actors, producers and other participants in those film projects lived in the building over the years. The new art-gate therefore has a movie theme, depicting items of movie-making equipment and a director’s chair. It also depicts Whitehall Court’s beautiful rose-garden. The new art-gate is intended as a reminder of the rich history of Killarney, and as an on-going source of inspiration.

We thank the people of Whitehall Court for this beautiful gift to the suburb.

Killarney-Riviera Recycling Project – Pilot

To reduce the amount of non-organic waste going into the landfills every day, we need to sort out and recycle the various recyclable materials in our domestic refuse. Some of our buildings already have proper recycling initiatives with established companies, but for most of us, the “trolley-reclaimers” are doing this job for us. To make this informal process work better, the Killarney-Riviera Recycling Project has been established in partnership with ARO (African Reclaimers Organisation).

The objectives are:

• to ensure that our suburb is left cleaner on Tuesdays after the reclaimers and PikiTup have finished;
• to make the work of the reclaimers smoother, easier and more dignified;
• over time, to ensure that all recyclable materials are removed from the domestic waste which goes into the PikiTup landfill sites.

ARO has provided us with green wheelie-bins in which we can accumulate all our recyclable materials. These bins have lids, so there will be no issues with rats or flies or odours. ARO also offer large hessian bags, and clear plastic bags, for those buildings which would prefer this approach. All recyclables must be accumulated in the new green bins (or bags) supplied by ARO, and electronic waste should be collected separately.

ARO will send their trucks into Killarney on Tuesdays to obtain the materials from the informal reclaimers, so that they don’t need to drag their trolleys for long distances in the traffic. ARO also undertakes to ensure that our area is left clean after they are done.

At present, there are 15 buildings participating in the recycling pilot project:

• Biarritz
• Brenthurst Court
• Bretton Woods
• Cranwell Hall
• Earls Court
• Greenhills
• Hampshire Mews
• Killarney Court and Gardens
• Killarney Park
• Killarney Village
• La Camargue
• Mentone Court
• Montevideo
• Rapallo
• The Riviera

We hope that eventually all our buildings will join the Killarney-Riviera Recycling Project. You can interact with them at https://chat.whatsapp.com/L1IlY4t9C837nVxp5oD8QW.

Constitutional Amendment Proposal

A while ago some residents proposed to change the format of the NKRA, by implementing a different constitution and structure. It was suggested that they should start by creating a new separate entity which meets all their personal preferences, and test if the people of Killarney-Riviera will support it, after which the NKRA members can vote on the NKRA being merged into the new entity.

This group of residents now apparently want instead to work within the NKRA, and their new proposal is for the existing NKRA constitution to just be given a “facelift”, so that it can be improved in places where appropriate. Their idea includes expanding the number of people who support the NKRA in various ways, including through creating more project teams and sub-committees – as is already provided for in the existing constitution. The existing NKRA constitution has served us well for decades, and it is fully compliant with all the applicable laws. It is not essential to change anything, but we are open to making improvements where this might be beneficial.

One of the reasons why the NKRA has succeeded for so long is that we have been very careful to avoid politics, and the NKRA constitution was originally designed to neutralise any use of politics to dominate the decisions (and access the finances) of the NKRA. In part this has been accomplished by giving the “office bearers” no power to spend members’ money unless each item of expenditure is specifically supported by a vote of members at a public meeting, after the proposed expenditure has been publicised in advance.

There has also been some discussion that we need to radically change the NKRA in order to access S18A tax status, which allows donors to deduct their donations for tax purposes. This whole issue is misleading, because according to the provisions of the Income Tax Act (S18A and the Ninth Schedule), S18A tax status is reserved for a limited range of specific activities, and a residents’ association will never qualify, no matter what form it takes.

Ultimately, an amendment to the NKRA constitution may be made only by a resolution of a majority of the NKRA members buildings, where each member building has one vote. A list of suggested amendments will be compiled and discussed, the proposed amendments will be presented to the NKRA member buildings, and each member building will need to discuss the proposed amendments internally and decide upon their building’s position. The proposed amendments will be voted on using a written ballot paper, so that confusion can be avoided, and a record can be retained. Each of the proposed amendments will be voted on individually, because member buildings may support some of the proposed amendments, while other proposed amendments may not be approved. All residents will be invited to offer suggestions, and to propose amendments.

Park Upliftment Projects

The mature jacaranda trees in the park need to be pruned. A large falling branch could be dangerous, and it’s also possible that an entire tree could fall – perhaps over the fence into an adjacent building. We have asked Johannesburg City Parks & Zoo (JCPZ) to attend to this, and they say they do not have capacity. However they are willing to allow us to hire an outside contractor to do the work, at our own expense, provided the JCPZ are also present on the day to monitor and supervise the work. The cheapest quote obtained was for R35,700. At the meeting it was instead suggested to ask the contractor to prune the dangerous branches but not to remove and dump them, in order to save on costs and reduce the quote. We could then use the cut wood ourselves, perhaps grinding it up to use as mulch, or we might use some branches elsewhere, or we might dump some of it later if necessary. This produced a reduced quotation of R17,000. We are now trying to co-ordinate with JCPZ to get started, but their woodchipper truck was recently hijacked, and they are waiting for a replacement. This project will be undertaken as soon as possible.

Pavement and street repairs

Cllr Huggett arranged a meeting with the JRA, to identify the process we need to follow to get municipal authorisation to fix our potholes ourselves. They told us to give them a list of our priority fixes, and said that these will be addressed as soon as possible, based on the “level of danger”. They said that if these issues are not addressed, we can then contact the head of the JRA to ask for special permission to address certain issues ourselves. We will review the status in January, and take the process forward accordingly.

In the meanwhile, please 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.

The service from the municipality has been very poor, and we are particularly disappointed with Joburg Water and the JRA, who are ruining our roads and pavements with sloppy repairs and poor reinstatements. Ward Councillor Huggett continues to push this issue on our behalf, but the various municipal departments all tell us the same thing – they lack the resources and funding to deliver the required workload.

Over time the municipality has replaced a lot of our missing manhole covers, but not all of them. It was resolved that the remaining uncovered manholes will be covered with unpainted concrete paving slabs, each one cut to size on a case-by-case basis. The quoted cost is R540 for each unpainted slab, including the cost of the slabs and the labour to cut and fit each slab. Some of the manholes are large enough to require more than one slab. The process was tested on the pavement in Riviera Road, and it works well. This project has therefore been initiated, and it will be completed as soon as circumstances permit.

In the meanwhle the JRA are helping by placing fibreglass covers over some of the more serious manholes, but these covers don’t fit properly, so they will not eliminate the danger. However, as a short-term protective measure, they are certainly better than nothing.

A lot of repair work has been done on the Riviera Road pavement between Oxford Road and 4^th Avenue. Unfortunately a serious new water leak then occurred under the edge of that pavement near the Oxford Road intersection, in the driveway of Beverley Heights, and it damaged our recent repair work. In addition to wasting a huge amount of water, we lost a number of the new paving stones which were either damaged by the diggers, or were buried in the hole when it was backfilled. It was resolved to spend up to R9,000 to complete this pavement repair work. We will also plant hardy water-wise vegetation along this pavement, to beautify the area.

The meeting resolved to spend R1,000 to repair the displaced kerb-stones on the Riviera Road pavement outside Daventry Court, where the new water meter was installed. The meeting also considered quotes to repair the kerb-stones lost or displaced in the two long-ago pipe-repair excavations in 4^th Avenue, on the pavement of Bretton Woods. The pavement surfaces have already been restored substantially by the NKRA to at least allow safer pedestrian passage, but because both of these excavations also displaced the gutters and the kerb-stones, there is a risk that continued rainwater run-off will erode the soil, and create an even bigger hazard. There are also other excavations and water leaks in 4^th Avenue, including on the 4^th Avenue pavements outside Killarney Court and Bretton Woods, and all of these will require attention shortly. When they are excavated and repaired, they leave us with more huge holes to deal with, potentially forcing people to walk in the street. The meeting agreed to expand this pavement repair project to address the additional issues as well, and so these kerb repairs will be held over until January. We will meanwhile do what we can to further reduce the safety risks on these pavements.

The leaking water valve in the road at the intersection of 3^rd Street and 4^th Avenue continues to be reported to Joburg Water. We cannot fix this ourselves.

Around half of the buildings in 1^st Street have gardens on their pavement or visible through a palisade fence, but in many places the 1^st Street pavements are visually unattractive. We therefore ask all buildings to plant additional vegetation on the pavements wherever possible. It was also suggested that we should use plants that are endemic to the Witwatersrand, provided they are hardy and water-wise. The damaged wall of Martindale Mews in 1^st Street, which has been patched over with corrugated iron for a number of years, continues to be a serious eyesore. This is easy to fix, but it cannot be done without co-operation from the owner.

A new project is starting up specifically to improve the area around the illegal taxi rank. This will include gardening and cleaning aspects, as well as improving the security and addressing the parking congestion.

A number of the benches in the park require repairs. Two quotes have been obtained, the cheapest being for R15,780 to repair and paint twelve benches, but the meeting decided to seek another quote, and to postpone this decision until our NKRA meeting in January.

Killarney Mall taxi rank and refurbishment progress

The process to sell the Killarney Mall is still underway, and although they keep telling us that a conclusion is imminent, there is still no definitive timeline. We are told that the delay is due to them finalising the last few legal issues, which means the new owner will be able to start their refurbishment project more quickly once the ownership has finally transferred. Per the municipal regulations, the relocation of the taxi rank onto the Mall premises will need to be included in this refurbishment project, so the sooner they can begin, the better for Killarney.

Safety and Security focuses

The risks of cell-phone snatching on pavements, and pick-pockets, are still a concern. All buildings are urged to warn their residents and visitors not to stand or walk on the pavement with a phone or valuables in their hands.

The City of Joburg has created a WhatsApp tipoff line, at 078 221 0419. You can use this number to report all by-law contraventions, including disturbances, drinking, illegal parking, etc. You need to send them the details of the problem, and the exact location.

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 Friends of the Library – Killarney

The Friends of the Library in Killarney (FOLK) ran various holiday programs for children at the Killarney library. These were well received by all the children who attended. You can interact with the FOLK by WhatsApp at https://chat.whatsapp.com/KrYlArsPHSRAiyoGHerC0s

The Community Gardens project

The veggies in the community food garden are doing well, and some of the veggies are ripe and are ready for harvesting. A group of residents have also started a shared bokashi project, which converts food waste into nutrient-dense garden fertiliser. You can interact with them on WhatsApp at: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Cjh3eJl57pv1XcoQ7OEBj9.

The Community Night WALKR’s street walks

The Community Night WALKR’s street walks are continuing. You can interact with the [KR] Social Walkers at https://chat.whatsapp.com/CGOgiBZSRmhDNTq5BVdccU?mode=wwt.

The Themba Cleanup/Upliftment Projects

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

NKRA Membership

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

This year, 40 buildings out of the 55 sectional title buildings in Killarney-Riviera paid their 2025 subscriptions – this is about 71% of the total. The list of the members is as follows:

• Berkeley Square
• Beverley Heights
• Biarritz
• Bolton Hall
• Brenthurst Court
• Bretton Woods
• Canterbury Close
• Castlerosse
• Chelston Hall
• Christina Court
• Cranwell Hall
• Daventry Court
• Devon Place
• Dumbarton Oaks
• Earl’s Court
• Gleneagles
• Glenhof Gardens
• Greenhills
• Hampshire House
• Hampshire Mews
• Highbury
• Hyde Court
• Interlaken
• Killarney Court and Gardens
• Killarney Hills
• Killarney Park
• Killarney Village
• Killarney Wilds
• Knightsbridge
• Mentone Court
• Monviso
• Park Avenue
• Portofino
• Rapallo
• Riviera Mansions
• Riviera Villas
• Santa Margherita
• Sloane Square
• Splice
• The Rivieras

We thank all these buildings 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;
• 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 “Night WALKR’s” walking groups, the Cleanup/Upliftment projects, and the Community Food Gardens Project;
• Undertaking various other projects, including repairing municipal infrastructure where this is allowed, to make the area safer and to improve our quality of life.

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/.

Our next NKRA monthly general meeting will be held at 18h30 on Wednesday 21 January 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?

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Wishing you all a safe and joyful festive season.

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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/