Why can’t we start with a CID on the beachfront first, and see how that goes, before expanding it to the rest of Camps Bay if necessary?

In our consultations with other CIDs, it became clear that the biggest issues occur at the edges of the CID, because the problems get pushed to the boundaries. Note the large array of shacks and shelters along one side of Upper Buitengracht that forms the boundary of the CBD CID, among many other examples.

As well as failing to address problems elsewhere, a CID along the beachfront strip would push the issues of begging, vagrancy, shack building and associated crime into adjacent streets and greenbelt areas, concentrating the problems there and providing no solution to Camps Bay as a whole.

By contrast, a suburb-wide initiative will leave no area untouched and the problems will be forced out of Camps Bay and Clifton altogether. This is the objective.

With our neighbours along the Atlantic Seaboard and the City creating new CIDs and expanding existing ones, the pressure on areas not covered by a CID will increase, further compounding our existing problems.

Finally, CIDs covering small areas are expensive, being unable to take advantage of the economies of scale associated with a professional management team and other fixed costs. Expanding gradually, or trying to combine multiple small CIDs in future would be highly inefficient and would also take many years, during which time our problems would intensify.

A CID covering the whole of Camps Bay is therefore the best solution.