February 2023
Dear Residents
We trust you are safe and well and wish you all the best for 2023.
Birdhaven remains a unique suburb which draws people from all over Johannesburg, for exercise or to enjoy the green spaces or cafes.
The James and Ethel Gray Park continues to be a drawcard for the area and we continue to work closely with the James and Ethel Gray Park Foundation and its team- we are anticipating some exciting enhancements to the park for 2023.
In 2022, with the support of residents we continued to conduct maintenance in the suburb and augment our cleaning and grass cutting equipment (including petrol grass cutters and implements to clean and maintain pavements). We are hoping to add to this equipment in 2023 so that we can deploy additional teams where necessary to augment, where possible, the maintenance cycles of City Parks and JRA. Following the serious storm at the end of 2022, we managed to clean up various areas of the suburb and procure that various damaged branches were removed or cut back.
2023 SUBSCRIPTIONS
The annual subscription for houses or clusters for 2023 is R770 per house. The annual subscription for flats and apartments for 2022 is R77 per flat or apartment. This represents just a 5.2% increase on the subscriptions for 2022.
If you are willing to donate a higher amount, this will be greatly appreciated, and we are most grateful to those residents who are able to support us with additional funding over the course of the year. Our service providers face cost increases, particularly petrol.
Our bank details are as follows:
Bank:
Branch Code: Account Number: Branch Name:
Standard Bank of South Africa Limited 00-42-05
0001948245
Jan Smuts Avenue Branch
Please insert your name & street address as reference & email the payment confirmation tobirdhavenrpa@gmail.com. If you require an invoice, please let us know and we will attend to same after receipt and clearance of payment.
Please support us so that we can deploy the funds into our maintenance and cleaning endeavours. These funds are used for maintaining the suburb, and includes repair of pavements, cleaning, repair of gum poles, general maintenance and clearing of illegally dumped waste and material (which has been occurring frequently recently on Melrose Street, Edgewood Avenue and North Street).
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we were unable to schedule the AGM for 2022 and will shortly communicate with you in this regard to schedule the AGM. This does not in any way delay our progress and endeavours on your behalf.
UPDATES
We have the following important updates for you-
- This year we intend to augment the playground areas and continue to add benches and tables in appropriate areas. If you would like to donate any of these, please let us know and we can manage the process for you. If you would like to dedicate the donation or have a business recognised, we will do this for you on the relevant item.
- We have worked again recently with City Power to repair various street lights in the suburb- you may have seen that new globes were installed in the suburb recently. However, we are concerned that there are areas in which the street lights fail regularly, such as Melrose Street (particularly near the Pikit Up Site) and we are engaging with City Power in this regard. Please report any street lights that are not working on the City Power website www.citypower.co.za . Then select Fault Logging. If you have not registered on the website, please do so as it is a useful and important resource. When reporting street lights that are not working, please endeavour to indicate the number on the pole itself (some numbers are not visible) or the nearest corner or house number; if there is an area out, reference can be made to the street pole numbers themselves or the entire street. There are comments sections on the reporting page for additional information.
- We have been advised that the Pikit Up Dump Site will undergo a renovation. We are in contact with Pikit Up and await further information in this regard as the site urgently requires a renovation and upgrade to manage the heavy traffic. We are grateful to the James and Ethel Gray Park Foundation for engagement with Pikit Up and helping to progress this project.
- We remain concerned with the four sites in Wrenrose Avenue which are yet to re-commence or commence building. At two of these sites, the pavements and curbs are not maintained and we intend to engage with the owners / developers to keep the curbs well maintained.
- We are aware of the significant delays of grass cutting in areas of the suburb, particularly the parks and are working with City Parks, our councillor and the James and Ethel Gray Foundation to endeavour to accelerate this process. The Foundation has commenced assisting City Parks with grass cutting in certain areas and thanks to generous donations towards diesel costs has been able to extend this process.
- We will be cleaning pavements along North Street, St Andrews Street and outside the main gate to the James and Ethel Gray Park.
- Please report the potholes to hotline@jra.org.za and if possible, please take a picture of the pothole and indicate the road, nearest corner and nearest house. In this regard, we are aware of pot holes on Melrose Street, Edgewood Avenue (at the bend), Greenacres Drive, and Wingfield Avenue.
- The Discovery Pot Hole Patrol APP is also recommended to report potholes as you can take pictures and identify areas with ease. Discovery recently repaired the potholes at the corner of Edgewood Avenue and Greenacres Drive most efficiently
- We continue to work closely with the James and Ethel Gray Park Foundation in a number of new initiatives, including enhancing safety and security for park users, the addition of facilities within the park, and regular maintenance and repairs. We thank the team at the Foundation most sincerely for its support and regular engagement and communication with us. It is thanks to the Foundation that the park has improved over the last few years.
- We continue to work with the owners of the Birdhaven shopping centre and we thank Ralph Chin for his efforts. It is hoped that the additional traffic calming measures in the shopping precinct which have been committed to us by the owners will be implemented during the course of 2023 once approved by JRA. The increased popularity of the shopping precinct has brought with the natural consequences of an increase in traffic and opportunistic crimes. We are looking at ways to alleviate these issues with the support from Ralph Chin and his team as well as JRA.
- Please endeavour to keep your curbs and pavements outside your homes clean and well cut as this adds to the overall beauty of the suburb. We intend to maintain the street name markings again in 2023 and are seeking to procure additional safety signage closer to the schools.
- We will be engaging with JRA regarding certain concrete drain covers which are not placed correctly (notably in St Andrews Street and North Street).
- The trench on Wrenrose Avenue has finally been re-tarred and some additional pavement and curb cleaning has been done in North Street and St Andrews.Please note the recent updates from MB CAP relating to various criminal activities in the suburb and we encourage you to join CAP and get the regular email updates. We remain concerned about increased levels of opportunistic crimes (particularly in the shopping precinct) and urge you to exercise vigilance and report any incidents to MB CAP. MB CAP offers regular helpful suggestions in this regard. We are very grateful to MB CAP for all its efforts in the suburb and we hope you will support CAP. The CAP Green Team has been active in the park areas of our suburb and we intend to seek additional support from them in 2023- the team is a very. Please support MB CAP.
The BRA is also in regular contact with Bella Vista and we thank the school for its ongoing support and concern for the suburb.
JOINING THE BRA As you may be aware, joining the website of the Birdhaven Rate Payers is free and you can do this by logging on to www.birdhavenrpa.co.za and you will receive updates. We are in the process of upgrading the website. Our email address is birdhavenrpa@gmail.com.
If you have moved into the suburb in the last 12 months, please send us your contact information so that we can update our database. The subscription period for the 2023 year runs from January 2023 to December 2023. In addition to joining the BRA, various streets have their own Whatsapp groups which residents can join.
We will continue to work with you, the Foundation and the relevant authorities to maintain our suburb We record our sincere thanks to Belinda Echeozonjoku, our councillor for her efforts in 2022 and for her regular communications and we encourage that you join her Whatsapp group to obtain important and useful information.
Please support us and be in touch if we can assist.
Remember- if you see something, say something!
Kind regards
Birdhaven Ratepayers Association