Central City Improvement District

Arising out of the Cape Town Partnership, the Central City Improvement District is a private-public partnership formed in November, 2000 by the property owners within the central city to provide complementary services over and above what the City of Cape Town provides.

At the heart of the CCID’s mandate is the vision to ensure that Cape Town is a safe, clean and caring city. The CCID also promotes the city for business and world-class events.

The formation of the CCID – which has become an internationally acclaimed model of public-private partnership – was a significant event for Cape Town because it was the first time a major South African city had implemented a fully constituted, legally bound City Improvement District covering the core of the Central Business District.

The CCID works closely with its partners to offer safety and security, quality urban management and social development services to stakeholders in the Central City.

CCID safety and security measures include visible policing, reaction units, policing of traffic infringements, ATM fraud detection, regulation of informal trading, event security, public assistance, vehicle breakdown assistance and security forums. CCID urban management consists of four precinct managers who monitor the streets and public spaces in Cape Town on a daily basis. The managers receive regular report-backs on defects within the precincts. They hold regular meetings with local authorities with the aim of developing urban management solutions.

The CCID provides a dedicated top-up cleansing service, making use of previously unemployed people, in the Central City. Streets and public spaces are kept clean and graffiti-free by 65 dedicated cleaners around the clock.

This team takes care of the general maintenance of the city – by ensuring that streets, sidewalks and drains are clean, that weeds are removed and that the streets are free of cigarette butts. They are also trained in reactive hot spot cleansing operations. The CCID works together with various NGOs, such as the organization Straatwerk, on both urban management and social development projects.

The CCID’s Social Development department focuses on assisting homeless people in the Central City as well as on alleviating poverty by supporting skills training and job creation projects. It works in partnership with NGOs and other organizations such as:

The CCID Social development department consists of three Field Workers and a dedicated Social Development Manager.

Despite perceptions to the contrary, Cape Town is as safe as most international cities, and this is in no small measure due to the efforts of the Central City Improvement District (CCID).

One of the main drivers behind the establishment of the CCID in 2000 was to make Cape Town’s Central City the safest in the country. The vision was to set up effective preventive and reactive security measures through highly visible police officers, mobile vehicles and a bicycle squad twenty four hours a day.

This public/private partnership collects more than R27 million a year from property owners in the city, half of which pays for extra security on the streets of Cape Town’s CBD.

Altogether, 200 security officers keep the streets of the CBD safe, day and night, for all those who work in, live in or visit the city. The dedicated team of security managers and foot officers, who are highly visible, patrol the streets on a 24-hour basis. A CCTV surveillance network, paid for by the City of Cape Town, assists in keeping crime at bay. In addition, Cape Town now also boasts a municipal police force. Three hundred and fifty officers have already been trained, 35 of whom are allocated to the central city specifically.

CCID security officers work in a close partnership with the private sector and all law enforcement agencies by communicating on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. The CCID officers work regularly with the SAPS in special operations related to illegal activities in problem buildings, illegal trading, fraud, drug trafficking and prostitution.

This unique partnership has seen a consistent decrease in the crime rate – and to date, since 2000, the CBD has experienced an astounding 85 percent decrease in crime. A mobile Safety Kiosk, set up last year by the CCID Security Department, which provides visible security in a range of locations, has made a huge contribution to security in the city. The kiosk provides visible policing in key locations, events, hotspot areas and problematic locations.

The CCID Security Department is expanding the Safety Kiosk programme, with a second kiosk expected shortly and a planned expansion to five kiosks by June 2010.