Johannesburg residents who have applied for boom-gate access control in their streets will hear from Thursday if their applications were approved or not, mayor Amos Masondo told reporters.
”As from tomorrow, October 28, our road agency will contact all the approved and rejected applicants and due process will be followed. So far we have approved 46 applications, covering 1 266 households in the city. Some 38 applications were rejected and 12 were sent back for further investigation,” Masondo said.
A total of 324 applications were received — 309 for existing closures and 15 for new closures. Most of these are in areas such as Midrand, Sandton, Kensington and Randburg.
Sandton alone accounts for about 80% of the total number of closures in the city. Each application can contain up to 22 road closures.
The road-closure assessment process began more than a year ago with an audit that led to the removal of 91 closures. Masondo said this was done in areas where permission to retain or erect new closures had not been asked.
Masondo said two were returned for further public participation and another two for traffic impact studies.
The mayor said of the 324 applications received, 130 were with the police who were assessing whether the existence of specified street closures had resulted in a reduction or increase of crime incidents.
”We seek to ensure effective regulations and management of road closures and to ensure that people have access to all public facilities and to the relevant infrastructure.
”Our policy defines security-access restrictions as access restriction to roads and public open spaces by means of gates, barricades and erecting fortifications and the retro-fitting of security measures for areas that were not originally designed or built to be walled off,” Masondo said.
The mayor said the total number of access restrictions within the city’s boundaries is 2 548. An approval is valid for two years from the date on which a notice is advertised in the media and in the Government Gazette or from a later date specified in the gazette.
Residents have 10 days within which to appeal rejected application decisions. — Sapa