Joburg council to go ahead with controversial policy on communes
By Candice Bailey - Saturday Star
Up to 40 percent of the houses in Melville, Westdene, Auckland Park and and surrounding suburbs could become student homes if the City of Joburg's controversial student commune policy goes ahead.
The council is continuing with its Residential Commune Policy to regulate student communes, despite the outrage of residents who will be affected. This week, the council's suggestion of a 40 percent student home ratio in the areas was rejected by most residents, who are instead proposing a 20 percent allocation to students' houses.
The residents' argument, according to Melville Residents Association chairwoman Liza de Wet, is that there is already a high-density student accommodation area proposed and that this should be adequate. They argue that a family house has four people while student houses have up to six people per house.
The policy intends to address residents' complaints that their quality of life has been lost because of overcrowded and rowdy student houses. Constant complaints of noise, regular partying, traffic congestion and illegal parking are just some of the problems that residents face.
The policy is the council's answer to this, as it would regulate the number of students per property and specify acceptable social behaviour.But residents from Melville and surrounding areas were initially totally against the policy, saying it would not address the problems and would transform their areas into "studentvilles".
The council called for comment from locals at the end of March, before the draft was finalised. This week, the city had a follow-up meeting with locals, where they took into account residents' concerns for the last time before they thrash out the final details for the second version of the draft policy.If it is agreed on, commune owners would need to apply for permits through the department of environmental health to run communes.
The first version had sought a high-density student area in a 2km radius around the university.The amended one now proposes the high-density strip along Portland and Perth roads, High Street and Kingsway along the Bus Rapid Transit route. Parking requirements, however, would be more relaxed, with student communes where students could use buses as opposed to normal communes with working people.
Cindy Grobbelaar, a DA councillor for the area, described the meeting as positive, even though some residents were still against the idea. Developers are asking for 10 students per property to make it viable, while Grobbelaar is suggesting six. Residents at the meeting indicated that up to eight students would still be acceptable.
Caj van Zyl, a resident and investor in the area, who also owns a letting management agency, explained that from a business perspective, it was only viable to have 10 people in a house.His argument is that it's not fair to have a blanket rule on the number of tenants on all sizes of property."There should be minimum-size single room and double room, along with the other standards, like four people per bathroom and various sizes for communal areas."This would mean that bigger properties could accommodate more students.Van Zyl said he understood residents' concerns about noise pollution and slumlording, but the correct management could deal with that. His worry was that the council should make the policy easier for landlords to comply with.
De Wet was reluctant to comment on the policy, saying she wanted to see the second draft first."There are still some concerns. But there has been a positive shift and there is communication open."City spokesman Nthatise Modingoane said the finalised policy would be tabled with the council at the end of the month. The amended policy will be available on the city's website from next week as well as its regional offices.
The envisaged time for approval of the policy is August or September, after it has been considered by the relevant committees.
Published on the web by Star on June 5, 2009.
© Star 2009. All rights reserved.
We find words like "controversial" and "outrage" very interesting. The draft policy is anything but controversial and in line with policies in Pretoria, Stellenbosch and other international varisty towns.
ReplyDeleteThis type of policy is nothing new and in all varsity towns across the world these type of policies are found.
In our interview with The Star we indicated that it is unreasonable to treat a 40sqm property the same as a 400sqm property. Minimum single person occupied room sizes (7sqm)and the rule of maximum 4 people per bathroom will determine the amount of allowed students per property and that it would be illogical to put a random and blanket figure of 6 or 8 or 10 people allowed per house.
Given these minimum requirments the average house in Westdene would probably be able to accommodate 4-6 people.
The amount of students and student tenanted properties in the area probably exceeds 40% of total properties as it stands currently. This has been the case for years. The only difference now is that "illegal" communes will be regulated and legitimised and as such would in our opinion reduce the amount of students currently occupying student accommodation in the surrounding areas.