Rosebank welcomes mayor to the precinct

The Rosebank Management District (RMD) welcomed the City of Johannesburg Executive Mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse on a walkabout.

The walkabout on August 22 was an opportunity to find ways in which the district could partner with the municipality to tackle key issues in the precinct.

Intaprop director Carollyn Mitchell highlighted that the Nodal Review had offered Rosebank an enormous opportunity to integrate with the whole restructuring of the city to create something relevant for the whole community.

She said the RMD received a lot of support from surrounding suburbs and residents’ associations which led to the success of Rosebank. The district is strategically located less than 6km from the inner city, she added, and this made twinning with the inner city a really interesting planning and economic opportunity.

Mitchell went on to highlight some of the transport challenges faced as the group toured the Rosebank taxi rank. She said the taxi rank as a whole operated well with minimal confrontations between taxi associations.

“There are limited ablution facilities and water which is problematic. It’s not quite a public transport facility that supports the node. The Johannesburg Development Agency has an ongoing project of upgrading a few buildings at the moment but its rollout has been slow.

“As a community, we want to put on the table that we are happy to see how we can source funding and create a structure that meets all the respective requirements of the interested parties to assist the City,” said Mitchell.

Adding to that, Lower RMD director Marion Stewart suggested looking at a more holistic approach to managing transport in Rosebank as there were various methods of transportation including e-hailing, Gautrain, private taxis and buses.

Local Abode founder Stephen du Preez expressed concern that the budget was not big enough to address these issues. He said, “There should be a bigger plan to solve it properly. Property owners and corporates have roles to play. There are a lot of new developments in the area and it exacerbates the situation.”

While touring Rosebank Park, RMD Precinct manager Rorisang Sojane said there were a lot of social ills occurring in the park. “You hardly see children using these recreation facilities because it’s not safe. By-law enforcement is needed. There was an initiative where parks would be handed over to communities and that’s something that needs to be pushed,” said Sojane.

Phalatse said the municipality was in support of the adopt a park initiative.

She said although the mayor’s office was not operational, they were able to do oversight visits and hold entities accountable. “Public-private partnership is encouraged to meet the City halfway where the City doesn’t have resources.”

The mayor said at the end of the walkabout they would draw up a list of things that required action by City entities and follow-ups would be done with these entities.

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