Firstly, we would like to personally thank all of the residents that were early adopters, street captains, Eldo Camera Monitoring Group and local businesses who have supported our local community initiative to create a safer environment for all of us. Not only through financial support but also their skill and expertise.
The Eldo Heights project has been officially running for just over a year, but the committee has been active in planning and execution for more than two years.
A project of this scale and complexity can take time to execute and we have had multiple challenges, including the Covid ’19 restrictions that have limited our ability to address the community at large scale events. We have moved through the different stages of the communication and on-boarding plans and have adapted our approaches based on these restrictions and the level of participation from the street captains.
Our biggest challenge to date is the lack of urgency of some residents to complete the consent forms. It must be noted that the majority of residents are overwhelming for this initiative and very few residents are opposed to the proposed closure.
Some of this reluctance stems from valid concerns that were not initially catered for in our project plans, one of which would be the safety and security concerns raised by the residents that live on Frederick Street. The main issue was that their houses would become a boundary of the estate We have worked closely with the Eldoraigne camera monitoring committee and in partnership with Monitor Net has piloted a technology where CCTV cameras can be integrated into a control room. An armed response is dispatched if a vehicle or a person is detected in a pre-set area. This technology uses artificial intelligence and has been in place for the past five months. One of the purposes of us suggesting this initiative is to mitigate the risk and ensure that they (Frederick street) also get the full benefit of the closure and can be included in the main project plan once we are able to move to the next phase.
Should you be interested in joining the Camera Monitoring Group – please contact Mickey on
We have adapted our strategy several times to get residents to provide us with the required road closure consent forms and have had pockets of success, but the process is slow and labour-intensive. There is the risk that we start to lose some of the early adopters either from moving out of the suburb or because of lack of progress.
We have known that the planned area was an ambitious target and have not given up the fight to include as many residents as possible in the proposed closure, but to ensure that the project is successful, we have run a few scenarios and consulted with specialists in the field to come up with a few different options that ensure we make it to the next phase.
We have divided the proposed closure into five sectors, where these sectors can be combined to create several scenarios that ensure a successful closure. One sector has already achieved over 60% participation and is on the cusp of being eligible for submission.
It is not our intention to exclude any sectors from that council submissions, but if we are unable to get 70% consent for a specific sector we will have to exclude them when submitting to the council for approvals. The removal of sectors from the original plan may impact the original budget but we have been working hard at creating sectors that would minimize this impact.
The next phase of this project ends on 18 April 2022. This forms a hard deadline where each sector is required to have achieved a minimum of 70% or is at risk of being excluded from the estate.
The committee is committed to assisting each sector but will require assistance from the street captains, both current and new volunteers, to make sure that we include as many sectors as possible.
We have created a digital version of the suburb where residents can see who has consented and ascertain the participation of their streets and the sector. This will be updated weekly and includes a status communication from the committee until the deadline is reached.
We plan to again have
- A public status meeting where all residents are welcome to come to ask questions and or collect/sign consent forms.
- Online weekly meeting where any resident can join should they want status updates or would like to assist in ensuring that their Street/sector has maximum opportunity for success.
| 19 February 2022 | Public Status Meeting – Sector announcement |
| 23 February 2022 | Online Status Meetings |
| 2,9,16,23,30 March 2022 | Online Status Meetings |
| 6,13 April 2022 | Online Status Meetings |
| 18 April 2022 | Deadline |
Please see the link to the draft participation map. This is a work in progress, and we are planning on having it finalised by the public status meeting on the 12th of Feb.
https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/fa27c35b-224f-41a8-ae1e-cc86f29e1f57/page/phFkC
Should you not see your house marked, please drop us a mail to the estate mailbox with your address and contact details. eldo2@pcps.co.za
Please join our telegram group for information and updates –