Cape Town - Residents of Sea Point have vowed to continue their rates boycott until the City council gives in to their demands.
It’s been a month since a number of residents decided to embark on a rates boycott withholding 50% of their property rates payments. They have accused the City of neglecting the area and delivering poor services.
Residents under the banner of the Concerned Residents of Atlantic Seaboard, co-ordinated by Sea Point resident Paul Jacobson, started a petition accompanied by an incident report listing acts of violence against residents as well as other social ills.
Jacobson said: “We are still proceeding with our rates boycott. The City has been playing hard ball threatening to cut off our services but we are raising our issues and they have severely underplayed it.”
Jacobson said he has met council officials regarding their boycott but “nothing has changed”.
The decision by residents was made at a meeting last month. In minutes of the meeting, which the Cape Argus has seen, they slam the City for its unwillingness and/or inability to stem the flow of homeless people, vagrants, aggressive begging, crime, illegal parking attendants on the Atlantic Seaboard and its failure to enforce its own by-laws in relation to public nuisance, dumping and litter.
The residents have been on a partial rates boycott since August. Withholding 50% of their rates will endure for as long as the failures and breaches of duty by the City continued, they said.
Sea Point Fresnaye Bantry Bay Ratepayers and Residents Association (SFB) chairperson Michael Ender said they were aware of the boycott and had been asked by the organisers to consider supporting it.
“The executive was concerned about the lack of clarity as to what needed to be achieved to determine when any boycott should end and what was precisely expected from the authorities to enable that to happen.”
Ward councillor Nicola Jowell said: “Since the launch of the rates boycott we have received notification from 28 people that they are taking part in the boycott. Many of the issues raised in the rates boycott relate to the homeless and policing which are not the core funded mandate of the City, but we continue with interventions through the Social Development Department and by-law enforcement.
“The concerns raised by the residents received attention by all the departments. The City aims to continually work to address the issues.”
Cape Argus