Patrick Otto, who serves on Democratic Alliance councillor Craig Harrison’s Ward 7 committee, said everybody has had enough of the problems with student housing. The streets where the student housing is include Varing Street, Aasvoël Road, Anglier and Kiewiet Streets, and that is not even all of them
“Just driving in this area on a weekend is very disturbing. The students drink alcohol in public, become unruly and the music is blaring. Everything happens on the streets,” Harrison said.
These problems were also brought up at a recent Community Policing Forum (CPF) meeting.
More than 150 residents have signed the petition to have the issue addressed and resolved. Harrison will be submitting a letter to Mzi Khumalo, Executive Mayor of the Rand West City Local Municipality.
Other areas are also affected. This past weekend, the Randfontein Police and the AfriForum Randfontein Neighbourhood Watch raided a house on van Deventer Street where they found 44 people sleeping inside.
Harrison feels these houses should be inspected by representatives of various departments such as Town Planning, Health and Safety, Safety and Security, the West Rand District Municipality, noise pollution experts, the police to check for any substance abuse, and the SA Revenue Service (Sars) to make sure that the owners of those houses abide by the law. This will help all the other wards where the same problems are being experienced.
Harrison consulted the City of Johannesburg’s by-laws and found that each student house should have a caretaker. Randfontein does not have these by-laws, but Harrison is going to submit a motion that the same by-laws are enforced in Randfontein.
He also spoke to an employee in management at Westcol College and suggested that they build housing for the students, seeing that they have the space to do so. “It will suit the students, and facilities can be put in place.”
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