Cape Town defends N2 wall and property rates recalibration

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JEREMY MAGGS: Cape Town, I read, is to spend around R115 million building a wall along parts of the N2. It’s a stretch of road that motorists have dubbed the Hell Run because of repeated violent attacks.

The city says the wall is going to improve safety and reduce so-called opportunistic crime.

Critics are arguing though it’s not going to fix the root causes of the poverty, inequality, spatial division and may simply push crime elsewhere.

My question is: is this a smart, data-driven urban safety planning exercise, or maybe just an expensive symbol of a city that is divided?

The mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, a very warm welcome to you. Is there hard data that you can share that proves this intervention will reduce attacks?

GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS: Yes, there is. This portion of road is responsible for the great majority of all pedestrian deaths in our entire city because there is currently unrestricted access to a national highway.

Even if it saves many lives in pedestrian deaths, it is worth it.

In addition to that, there are also a large number of opportunistic crimes on this roadway because people, again, have unrestricted access.

So criminals can dash into the highway in the middle of peak hour traffic when cars are at a standstill, they can conduct their robberies and dash right out of the roadway again, and it’s impossible to catch them.

So we have to close down unrestricted access to a national highway. That is a very common thing around the world.

It’s actually already a crime in South Africa to walk and to have access to a national highway. But it is very hard to enforce when there’s nothing restricting access. So we plan to fix that.

JEREMY MAGGS: Your critics say the wall risks becoming a barrier, a symbolic barrier between wealthy motorists and poorer communities.

GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS: Well, firstly, the motorists of the N2 are not all wealthy motorists.

Of course, there are some who might be going to Somerset West, but there are also many other communities along that highway, such as Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha, Eerste River, Blue Downs, Mfuleni, Macassar, the middle-class communities of the Strand and Gordon’s Bay.

They all use the N2, and it’s literally the most used highway in the Western Cape.

It’s used by everyone from a broad spectrum of Cape Town communities, and they should all be safer.

They all deserve to be safer. At the moment they are not.

JEREMY MAGGS: And the argument that it simply displaces crime elsewhere.

GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS: Well, of course, I heard in your introduction that it doesn’t address the root causes of crime, but that is outside of the scope for any one project to address all of the root causes of crime, there have to be a multiplicity of interventions in our society.

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A faster growing economy is the most important way to address the root causes of crime. A much better police (service), much better investigations, a better criminal justice system, a better education system.

I could go on and on about all of the other root causes of crime, but the fact is, you also have to, while you’re working on those other things, address some of the most severe symptoms.

You can’t just ignore the symptoms and say, well, eventually these symptoms will go away in 10 years’ time or 20 years’ time when we get progress on the root causes. We have to address both now and that is what we are doing.

JEREMY MAGGS: Are there specific metrics for success, and are you committing publicly to reporting on whether the attacks decline?

GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS: Absolutely. We record every single criminal incident and, of course, pedestrian death that happens on that road, and we publish that data.

There have been 2 800 such incidents in the last two years or so, a very, very high number. Obviously, the metric of success is to see that number reduce dramatically.

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It has already reduced somewhat because in October we took a decision again to deploy 45 dedicated patrol officers to the N2, and they patrol that road 24/7. We’ve seen quite a significant drop off, but still, we see incidents happening. So we want to see that drop off even faster.

JEREMY MAGGS: Mayor, let me pivot to your property relief announcement. You’re lowering the rate in rand by 10.2%.

But overall, property values have jumped more than 16%. For many homeowners, and this is the argument, it still means paying more.

Isn’t this just less of a tax cut and more of a recalibration, maybe, to prevent political backlash?

GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS: No, it is a tax cut, quite literally. We are cutting the rate at which we tax properties in Cape Town, because there has been such strong value growth that we can raise the same revenue from our properties, from a lower tax rate. That is a good thing.

But of course, what you say is partly right in that some parts of the city have experienced extraordinary value growth, far more than the 10.2% that we are cutting. So they will still feel that increase in rates.

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We’ve tried our best to shield them by proposing this reduction in the tax rate of 10.2% and by increasing the tax-free, the rates-free portion of properties to R500 000, and increasing the threshold at which that applies all the way up to properties of R8 million in value and below.

We really have tried a number of ways to shield people from having to pay more.

Our modelling of all 1.1 million of our bills shows that 60% of customers in the city will pay no more or will actually see a small reduction in their rates account.

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But we must say that there is a caveat, that means there are those who will still see an increase based on the increased value of their property.

JEREMY MAGGS: Let me finish with a party political question. Mayor, how confident are you of winning the DA’s (Democratic Alliance) leadership race?

GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS: (Chuckle) Well, the DA has an internal rule that I can only start talking about that this Friday, 27 February. So you can ask me that question on Friday, I’m afraid, but not today.

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