Tag Archive for: urban management

Shelter Plays a Role in SWCID

Homeless persons who find refuge at the Somerset West Night Shelter, are given the opportunity to earn their board and lodgings by being employed to assist the SWCID teams, especially with cleaning tasks. The prerequisite is that they should be clean in terms of drug and alcohol consumption. 

enabling the vulnerable to earn helping with beautification 2

 

The services of the shelter, its staff and inhabitants are utilised on a partnership basis in these ways: 

  • For labour when necessary 
  • The resident social worker occasionally meets with the SWCID to determine needs, and sometimes walks through the CID to engage with people on the street in need of help or advice. 
  • The residents of the shelter are willing to engage in conversation with the PSO of Secure Rite to explain how homeless persons with their variety of problems and challenges should best be approached. 

Some of the accompanying photos show Law Enforcement officials being involved with staff from Secure Rite and with Public Safety. 

According to the SWCID manager, Ernst van Zyl, the metro’s Law Enforcement officials regularly contact them for operations to be executed in the CID. 

tidying and beautifying meeting with shelter staff helping with beautification 1 engaging with people on the street collaborating with security staff cleaning tasks cleaning and de-weeding cleaning and beautifying cleaning and beautifying 2 briefing of shelter clients beautification beautification and cleaning beautification (2)

/0 Comments/by

Cleaning operations in full swing

The cleaning team of the SWCID has a host of tasks and challenges to contend with daily. 

Accompanying photos show the various activities that they engage in, which include the following: 

  • mowing of grass; 
  • maintenance work on poles; 
  • removal of stones that are lying around – in order to prevent criminally minded people  from using them to break windows of cars and businesses; 
  • cutting or pruning of branches and carting of the garden refuse to the dumping site; 
  • removal of graffiti and posters

 mowing 1

 

mowing 2

mowing 3

mowing 4

mowing 5

pole maintenance 2

pole maintenance 3

pole maintenance 4

pole maintenance 5

/0 Comments/by

Urban Management Trolley Introduced

The Geocentric Urban Management Trolley Project was initiated in 2017. 

The aim of the project is to provide urban cleaning and maintenance teams with a platform to improve their daily tasks, assist with moving of equipment and tools and enable recycling while performing their tasks. 

A few design considerations were introduced into the design of the trolley including 

  • The ability to move heavy loads of litter or recycling from one point to another without effort or potential injury 
  • Create high visibility for the cleaning and maintenance teams 
  • Have quick and easy access to tools and equipment 
  • The ability, even when fully loaded, to easy ascend and descend kerbs and sidewalks 
  • Be able to separate waste as they work to support the recycling initiative 

To achieve some of these design principles, Geocentric looked at simple solutions from other designs, for example, the stair-climbing suitcases used by so many travellers.  By scaling up the design for the urban management trolleys, we could produce a sidewalk and pavement climbing trolley where the urban management worker needs minimum effort to get onto and off pavements to perform their duties.  

(See photos of step 1, 2 and 3 illustrating this concept.) 

step1

step2

step3

The trolleys were also designed to be pushed from any side with key tools located in the middle so that it is in fact easy to use it for a two-man team operation.  On each side of the trolley a plastic tool box allows storage for small tools. 

Recyclables like tin cans, glass and plastic bottles are collected by the urban management workers throughout the day as they clean the streets and public spaces and at the end of each day they separate the items into baskets whereafter Geocentric recycles the items. 

trolley 4

trolley 5

This is another way in which we make CID operations more sustainable and environmentally friendly as we prevent a vast amount of waste from simply going to landfills. 

trolley 6

Geocentric have rolled out these trollies in the Elsies River and Beaconvale City Improvement Districts and plan to roll them out to all the other CIDs under Geocentric management through the course of 2018. 

 

/0 Comments/by

Safety and Security enjoy Priority in SWCID

In collaboration with the CCT

’

In collaboration with the CCT’s Law Enforcement Officer assigned to the SWCID, Secure Rite as service provider to the SWCID conducts a variety of operations aimed at preventing contraventions and addressing a variety of safety and security issues in the area. 

Some of the activities include the following: 

  • Safeguarding the area and ensuring that homeless persons do not sleep in the CID or beg for money from the public; 
  • Patrolling and surveillance of businesses and in the case of burglaries or robberies, the support of clients by the Public Safety Officer. 
  • Addressing the problem of alcohol abuse in public (within the CID). 
  • Joint operations launched by the CCT’s Law Enforcement department. 

See visuals depicting amongst other things, the joint SAPS, Law Enforcement and SWCID operation in the vicinity of the bridge over the river in Somerset west. 

  • SWCID CCTV project: accompanying pictures show the installation of cameras by Secure Rite and the view of the streets from the control room. 

security camera 1 security camera 3 security camera James Street

  • Voluntarily lending a helping hand to the public – for example when car trouble is experienced. 

bridge operation 1 bridge operation 2 bridge operation 5 Confiscate trollies Confiscate wheely bins operation with law enforcement officer 1 PSO assists with shoplifting 1 PSO assists with shoplifting 2 public safety officers 2 Public Safety officers removal of stones 1 removal of stones 2 removal of stones 3 sharp object confiscated

 

A newspaper article reported everything but to mention that this operation was initiated by the SWCID and that most of the manpower and resources came from the SWCID.  Pictures also show officers assisting the SAPS in the operation and of where they are helping to remove structures (with the assistance of the SWCID cleaning team) as well as patrol officers show dangerous weapons found during the operation. 

Article on bridge operation 1

s Public Safety Officer assigned to the SWCID, Secure Rite conduct

/0 Comments/by

Geocentric Launches New App

“As Geocentric we are very proud to launch our new mobile phone reporting application,” said Gene Lohrentz of the urban management company recently. “This is another way in which we are enabling our CID business and property owners to interact with their City Improvement District Management. 

 

“We want our CID contributors to become part of our family by interacting with us about issues they might encounter.  The mobile application makes that possible on the devices most people have with them every day.” 

Geocentric Reporting App 2

 

The Geocentric app allows users to easily report issues in the City Improvement Districts managed by Geocentric Urban Management based in South Africa.  Currently the areas covered by this Application include Beaconvale Industrial Area, Elsies River Industrial, Glosderry, Maitland, Salt River, Somerset West CBD, Stikland Industrial, Strand CBD and the Tygervalley CBD.  

 

With this application users can report urban defects, crime incidents, public safety issues and general comments.  “We will acknowledge your report and provide you with feedback throughout the process.  We will also send you ‘Alerts’ of problems in your CID area, such as water leaks or power outages and we can even send crime alerts and safety tips to your mobile phone. 

 Geocentric Reporting App 1

The Geocentric Reporting Application is Free of Charge! 

 

Simply install it and register as a user when using it for the first time.  If you need any help, please contact support@geocentric.co.za 

 

Let’s get started! 

 

  • Simply download and install the App from the Google Play or Apple App Store  
  • Register as a user, using the app when you open it for the first time 
  • We will send you a confirmation email and you will have to activate your app by clicking on the activation link in the email – this is to ensure we are dealing with people and not spammers. 
  • Go to your email and verify your email address 
  • Log in and you are ready to go! 
/0 Comments/by