The City of Cape Town’s Public Housing Department has spent close to R1 billion in maintenance and upgrades to its Community Residential Units (CRUs), including the intricate work on fixing and replacing staircases. Urgent work continues. The health and safety of our residents is our priority and we urge residents to please be patient while we attend to the most urgent cases first.
Since 2018 the City’s Public Housing Department has replaced or upgraded 854 staircases, and the City will continue to address the concerns raised by our residents.
For the 2019/20 financial year, the City’s Public Housing Department successfully carried out more than 20 974 service requests, this averages to about 1 700 service requests per month. The City has more than 45 000 rental units in its housing stock portfolio primarily to assist its indigent residents.
As a temporary measure, the City installs scaffolding staircases, while the work is planned and carried out. The City’s scaffolding is erected by authorised contractors, who are accountable to Occupational Health and Safety Agents. The independent agent inspects and ensures that the temporary scaffolding is installed according to the correct methods and safety standards applicable to that of temporary scaffold access/staircases. The scaffolding is then inspected by a structural engineer to further ensure the safety of the staircases and our residents. The City encourages its tenants to notify it of any concerns around safety or where staircases or scaffolding has been damaged or vandalised. The City will attend to the service requests as a matter of urgency.
Staircase replacements and upgrades have been done across the metro, including in Hout Bay, Atlantis (Protea Park, Robinvale and Saxson Sea) and Scottsdene; Macassar and Lwandle; Hanover Park, Elsies River (Avonwood, Leonsdale, Adriaanse, Clarkes Estate, Trinity Place, Springbok Place and Avon Estate), Ravensmead, Heideveld, Manenberg, Parkwood, Lavender Hill and Retreat.
‘The funding spent to date, the service requests dealt with and the City’s responsiveness are testament to our commitment to our tenants and to the importance we place on their living conditions. The City’s dedicated teams are working tirelessly to ensure that the staircases that have been identified for urgent repairs, are attended to as soon as possible and that temporary safety measures are put in place to deal with any safety issues.
‘As a result of ageing infrastructure and the large number of staircases, not to mention the intricate engineering work required to do replacements and repairs, some have required urgent work, and we ensure our residents that the work continues.
‘It is our duty to ensure that our residents have safe access to their rental homes. We thank our residents for their patience while staff are carrying out the work,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi.