greening – Somerset West City Improvement District

Spring Update & AGM 2025 – Save the Date

As the seasons shift from winter to spring, the Somerset West City Improvement District continues its work to keep our urban environment clean, safe and well maintained. This is also the time when we prepare for our Annual General Meeting (AGM 2025), where we reflect on the year’s achievements and look ahead to 2025/26.

We invite all stakeholders to join us for our AGM – an important opportunity to participate in shaping the future of our community. Full details are provided below.

AGM 2025

Save the Date!

An important event on our annual agenda, the Somerset West CID AGM will take place on Tuesday, 7 October 2025 at 15:00 at The Farm House Coffee Shop Restaurant, The Trading Post Centre, 53 Caledon Street, Somerset West, 7130. Stakeholders are welcome to attend and contribute. Voting is restricted to bona fide members. Non-members wishing to take part must register before Friday, 26 September 2025.

RSVP to info@swcid.co.za.

Become a Member

To become a member there are a few documents that need to be filled out. Under the Companies Act, the Members’ Register must contain the following information in respect of each member:
(a) name; (b) business, residential or postal address; (c) email address (unless person has declined to provide an email address); and (d) an identifying number unique to that person (e.g. a RSA ID number).

Find these application forms here.

Greening & Urban Maintenance

Over the past months, our teams have been hard at work maintaining and refreshing the Somerset West area. These projects are aimed at improving the quality of the public environment for all who live, work and visit here.

Our focus has included:

Urban cleaning and maintenance – tackling illegal dumping, graffiti removal, gutter and drain cleaning, poster removal and high-pressure sanitising.
Greening initiatives – planting, landscaping and maintaining public spaces to create a more welcoming and environmentally friendly urban landscape.
Ongoing upgrades – responding to service requests, addressing problem areas, and ensuring that seasonal changes don’t compromise the safety or cleanliness of our streets.

Together, these efforts lay the foundation for a brighter, cleaner and greener spring season.

Urban Maintenance – before, during and after

Somerset West Project Update

Planting tree cages in Belvedere and Main Roads

Community Spotlight

Somerset West Village Garden – Celebrating 10 Years of Growth

The Somerset West Village Garden is marking a decade of impact this October, and the community is invited to join the celebrations. The event promises a vibrant day out, with a veggie market, kids’ activities, sustainability workshops, food truck favourites and bubbles-and-bites tastings.

Venue: Somerset West Village Garden & surrounding restaurants along Drama Street
Date: Saturday, 11 October (TBC)
Time: 10:00 – 14:00

City Updates

Switch to eBilling before 31 December 2025

The City of Cape Town is phasing out paper bills, with all municipal accounts to be sent by email from 1 January 2026. To switch to eBilling, simply send your account number and email address to Revenue.Eservices@capetown.gov.za or via SMS to 31223. More than 475 000 residents have already made the move, enjoying faster, more efficient and environmentally friendly billing. Customers without email access can still receive paper bills by contacting the City’s Call Centre on 0860 103 089 for assistance.

Building a Cleaner, Greener Cape Town – The City’s New Waste Strategy

The City of Cape Town has launched its new Waste Strategy, a long-term roadmap to deliver sustainable, affordable and future-fit waste services for all residents and businesses. With illegal dumping, landfill reliance and growing urban waste challenges, the strategy sets out clear goals to improve data and technology use, drive behaviour change, strengthen partnerships and close service gaps.

Centred on three pillars – optimising existing services, minimising waste to landfill, and maximising service offerings – the strategy calls on everyone to play their part in building a cleaner, greener Cape Town.

Download the full Waste Strategy

Electricity Tariff Reform – What’s New

From 1 July 2025, as part of the new municipal financial year, customers may notice changes to electricity tariffs and the way items appear on their municipal accounts. These reforms are designed to ensure sustainable service delivery into the future while continuing to provide price relief where possible.

For more information, please see the City’s electricity price relief overview pamphlet.

View the Pamphlet

September 12, 2025/0 Comments/by Admin

News, Our Partnerships

Winter Hope – Give Back Responsibly – help combat poverty & inequality

Winter in Cape Town is a time in which poverty and homelessness become heightened social issues, because of the extremely harsh weather conditions. At the same time, the annual Mandela Day initiative coincides, taking place this 18 July, helping to bring hope and support to vulnerable communities.

Indigent people in South Africa are an inherent part of the cityscape, with hundreds of thousands of people homeless and living on the streets.

It is well-known that cash handouts are not a good solution for supporting people living on the streets – as these often serve to fuel the problem by funding addiction and other negative or self-perpetuating behaviour.

However, most of us would like to help in some way to combat poverty and inequality. For this reason, it’s important to work with known NGOs, nonprofits or charities, who have built social infrastructures and relationships that have longevity.

Mould, Empower, Serve: How City Improvement Districts are working with MES

MES Cape Town is a key partner in the mission to sustainably rehome the homeless across various City Improvement Districts. Their extensive network of outreach and social relief programs provides the vital reach and resources our CID needs. Additionally, their responsive help desk is always available to assist with the immediate and short-term needs of the homeless and unemployed community.

We work closely with MES to identify individuals for casual labour on specific projects. Their team actively scouts promising candidates, placing them with us each week on a probationary basis as one of our on-the-ground workers, fondly known as our “Green Ants”. For those who show dedication, we offer pathways for them to become supervisors and advance their training, making them valuable members of our workforce in a way that allows us to support their growth.

To ensure the funds generated through our partnership are used effectively, we pay stipends directly to MES, which helps cover their living expenses sustainably throughout their stay.

Winter Hope 2024

MES is running a WinterHope campaign until the end of July, in a mission to spread hope and warmth this winter, by gathering essential items such as warm clothing, blankets, and nourishing food supplies.

Visit MES @mouldempowerserve on Facebook to see causes near you to support this winter.

AGM save the date & spring greening Somerset West

New planter boxes alongside Helderberg Village Centre

This October, we hold our Annual General Meeting (AGM 2023) to review the year’s activities and begin our planning for 2024/25. We hope all our members can attend. Non-members still have time to register. The new City of Cape Town CID by-law and policy came into effect on 1 July and that is available to view online.

The recent bout of storms and cold fronts experienced in the Cape have certainly added to the work of the CIDs, in particular in the way of road maintenance and fallen trees. We’d like to remind you at this time to assist us in providing effective service by logging a service request for any faults encountered.

Lastly, our CID has undertaken several urban beautification projects this Spring, adding greenery and cleaning up public areas of Somerset West. And, we have an update on the Public Transport Interchange (PTI) due for completion next year.

Our AGM 2023 is coming up

All stakeholders are invited to a review of the year’s activities and planning for 2024/25.

Resolutions presented at the AGM can only be voted for by bonafide members. All non-members wishing to take part must be registered before 9 October.

View all AGM documents here.

AGM Details

Wednesday, 18 October 2023, 15:00

The Farm House Coffee Shop Restaurant, The Trading Post Centre, 53 Caledon Street, Corner of Caledon and Myburgh Street, Somerset West.

RSVP to info@swcid.co.za

New CID By-law Policy

The new CID by-law policy came into effect from 1 July, which serves “To provide for the establishment of City Improvement Districts; to provide for additional rates; and to provide for matters incidental thereto.”

The City of Cape Town’s by-law and policy regarding the establishment and management of City Improvement Districts has gone through several iterations over the years since the concept of a CID was first tested in the year 2000.

The latest revisions of the by-law and policy comes as more than 50 CIDs are now in operation.

The by-law is available to download online here at openbylaws.org.za.

Spring greening Somerset West

A project that has been jointly provided by the Helderberg Village Centre, the Somerset West CID has made new planter boxes that are situated in Drama Street between Main Road and Caledon Street, paid for by the Helderberg Village Centre.

The planter boxes, which have been planted with greenery and installed by the CID, serve multiple purposes – the primary one being to beautify the area, adding greenery and life to a dull side road. Secondarily, the wide sidewalks have often in the past been used for illegal parking, blocking the accessibility of pedestrians and creating the opportunity for vagrants to urinate on the sidewalks next to the public shopping centre.

Turning a negative situation into an opportunity to create a more aesthetically pleasing environment for the public, the planter boxes prevent people from parking on the sidewalk and the antisocial behaviour around this.

The Somerset West CID are the custodians of the planter boxes and regularly water and maintain the plants.

Update on the public transport interchange (PTI) construction

Nearing completion in Q1 2024, the Public Transport Interchange (PTI) construction is well underway. The contractor has shared an update, stating that the completion date is still 18 March 2024, in spite of challenges faced including inclement weather and the taxi strike. The construction company has employed 15 local workers, including client liaison officer. The contractor would like to thank the community for working with us.

Logging a service request with the City

You too can assist with urban management and the growing number of faults and service requests that the City and our CID deal with on a daily basis. By reporting water and electricity faults and other maintenance requirements such as potholes, missing road signs or blocked stormwater drains, through the correct channels, we and the City are able to attend to these service requests and log their status in an effective way.

There are multiple channels through which you can do this – the easiest being the online portal at capetown.gov.za/servicerequests, which is also now available in the City of Cape Town mobile app.

View all the steps to log a service request on the flyers below.

October 6, 2023/0 Comments/by Admin

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