Category: Our Area Improvement Projects

Spring Update & AGM 2026 Save the Date

As spring arrives, Cape Town is heading towards the hotter, drier months of the year. Although the city’s dam levels are currently at 75.5%, rainfall remains unpredictable and levels are lower than at the same time last year. With summer approaching, waterwise gardening and responsible water use are particularly important.

Across the City Improvement Districts, teams continue to focus on maintaining public spaces, caring for planted areas and preparing our neighbourhoods for the season ahead.

This is also the time of year when we prepare for our Annual General Meetings (AGMs), where we reflect on

AGM 2026

Save the Date!

WID will host its AGM on Thursday, 15 October 2026 @ 11:00 at No 1 De Waal House, 172 Victoria Road, Woodstock, 7925. All stakeholders are welcome to attend. Only bona fide members may vote on resolutions. Non-members wishing to participate must register before Tuesday, 6 October.

Please RSVP to info@wid.co.za

Find all AGM documentation here.

View the AGM and extension of term notice.

Become a Member

To become a member there are a few documents that need to be completed. 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 the person has declined to provide an email address; and (d) an identifying number unique to that person, such as a South African ID number.

Find the membership application forms here.

Greening & Urban Maintenance

Spring is a good time to take stock of our public spaces and prepare for the warmer months ahead. Across the CIDs, teams have been carrying out a range of greening, cleaning and maintenance projects to keep our neighbourhoods well maintained and welcoming.

Spring in WID

These day-to-day efforts make a difference to the experience of everyone who lives, works and spends time in our district. By keeping public spaces cared for and responding to the needs of each area, our teams help maintain the quality of the urban environment throughout the year – with spring providing an opportunity to build on this work as we head into summer.

Water-wise Cape Town

Cape Town is a water-scarce city. While supply is currently stable, the outlook is becoming more uncertain, and rainfall remains unpredictable.

As we head into the hotter, drier months, businesses can help by checking for leaks, monitoring water use and making sure water is used efficiently.

Water-wise Garden Tips

Spring is the time to get outdoor spaces ready for the warmer, drier months ahead. A few simple choices now can make a big difference later – from planting indigenous species and adding mulch to watering deeply rather than daily and making the most of every drop of rain.

City Updates

Have your say on the future of transport in Cape Town

The City of Cape Town is inviting residents and interested parties to comment on the 2026 draft update to its Comprehensive Integrated Transport Plan (CITP), which guides future transport planning across the city.

The update considers public transport, walking and cycling, and ways to improve access and connectivity.

Comments close on 30 September 2026.

Submit your comment via the City’s website (Issues Open for Public Comment).

Short-Term Letting By-Law open for public comment

The City’s draft Short-Term Letting By-Law is open for public comment until 5 October 2026. The proposed by-law would introduce a registration system for properties listed on booking platforms and improve the City’s access to information about short-term letting.

View the draft By-Law and submit your comments via www.capetown.gov.za/haveyoursay.

Keep connected

Follow us on Facebook and subscribe to our newsletter for updates on projects, public-space maintenance and community news. Join our Community Whatsapp Group for public safety and urban maintenance incidents.

Spring update & AGM 2025 save the date

As the seasons shift from winter to spring, the Woodstock 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

AGM 2025

Save the Date!

An important event on our annual agenda, the Woodstock Improvement District will host its AGM on Thursday, 16 October 2025 at 11:00 at 1 De Waal House, 172 Victoria Road, Woodstock. All stakeholders are welcome to attend. Only bona fide members may vote on resolutions. Non-members wishing to participate must register before Tuesday, 7 October 2025.

RSVP to info@wid.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 Woodstock 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.

Grass cutting – before, during and after

Updates from the Woodstock Improvement District

In Woodstock, recent projects have included large-scale deweeding and grass cutting, as well as gutter and drain cleaning to prevent blockages from winter rainfall. The team has also addressed illegal dumping and graffiti and poster removal, ensuring public spaces remain safe and welcoming.

Ongoing urban maintenance in Woodstock
Greening projects in Woodstock

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

Winter Hope & Giving 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.

MES Cape Town - Mould, Empower, Serve

Mould, Empower, Serve  –  how the 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.

Woodstock Improvement District 2022

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.

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Winter Readiness, Wheelie Bin Safety and Woodstock Greening Initiative

As we head into the colder months, we’re preparing you with some winter readiness tips to keep both yourself and your property safe.

Additionally, we share some tips on keeping your wheelie bin safe so that you know it’ll always find its way back home, as well as some exciting news about a greening initiative being run in Woodstock.

And, we share some recent updates from our WID manager on their operational achievements in the CID.

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Woodstock Art Guide

February is Cape Town art month – with two major programme highlights being the Cape Town Art Fair from 16-18 February at the CTICC, and the International Public Art Festival from 14-18 February across the City Centre. To celebrate Woodstock’s place on the Cape Town art map, we have compiled our own guide of all the artist hot spots to be found in Woodstock and neighbouring Salt River.⁠

From art galleries and artist studios, to some of the best art stores, framing shops and art colleges in the city, Woodstock is one of the most notable art routes in Cape Town.⁠

Woodstock Art Galleries

Stevenson Gallery

Buchanan Building, 160 Sir Lowry Road

@stevenson_za

Arguably one of Cape Town’s most important galleries, representing regional artists on the international art scene such as Zanele Muholi, Penny Siopis, Guy Tillim, Zander Blom, Wim Botha and Pieter Hugo, Stevenson has galleries in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Amsterdam and participates in Art Basel, Frieze London, Paris Photo, Art Basel Miami Beach and of course, Cape Town Art Fair.

Art It Is Gallery

76 Albert Road, Woodstock

Art Is It is a vibrant addition to the contemporary art scene, providing a space that both showcases new talent and removes the feeling of intimidation when visiting a gallery to view art.

@artitisgallery

131a Gallery

131 Sir Lowry Road

One of Cape Town’s top young galleries of contemporary art in a small space that hosts excellent exhibitions of solo artists and group shows, 131a Gallery is run by the founder of Cape Town’s artsy Lake magazine, Brett Bellairs.

@131agallery

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AGM 2023 Save the Date + spring cleaning & greening Woodstock

Come October, we hold our Annual General Meeting (AGM 2023) to review the year’s activities and begin our planning for 2024/25. This Spring, we have also undertaken several urban beautification projects, adding greenery and cleaning up public areas of Woodstock to improve the community experience of people living in, working in and visiting Woodstock.

AGM 2023 save the date

SAVE THE DATE! 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 16 October.

AGM Details

Wednesday, 25 October 2023, 12:00
No 1 De Waal House, 172 Victoria Road, Woodstock
RSVP to info@wid.co.za

Spring cleaning and greening Woodstock

The Woodstock ID embarked on small urban beautification projects this year, which we hope to continue into the next year. The project initially started with the revamping of some of the old public benches in Victoria Road with the help of local businesses. As part of the ongoing project, the WID augmented these seating areas with large planter pots to bring some greenery to the area and will also add public cigarette bins in their vicinity to keep the area clean.

More potted plants were also placed along Victoria Road near the intersection of Mountain Road to create a barrier between pedestrians and vehicle traffic in the adjacent parking area.

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Spring update: upgrade to Woodstock Town Hall Park and spring cleaning our community

What better focus for Spring than cleaning and greening? Our Woodstock community has recently benefited from an upgrade to the Woodstock Town Hall Park, which was ceremoniously opened along with the new Woodstock Town Hall by Cape Town Mayor Geordin Gwyn Hill-Lewis.

The WID cleaning team has had its hands full – and we had a special visit from learners from the Holy Cross High School, working towards a cleaner environment.

And while we battle with illegal dumping on a daily basis, you can join us in the fight to crack down by reporting any illegal activity through the correct channels.

Woodstock Town Hall Park upgrade - Image credit: City of Cape Town
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Gwyn Hill-Lewis opens the new Woodstock Town Hall and park at the Woodstock Community Open Day. Image credit: City of Cape Town
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Helping the homeless to build a sustainable future

Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” As South Africans, we are sometimes desensitised to the poverty that permeates our ordinary lives. We become used to the sight of the radical impact our ever-expanding gap between the haves and have-nots creates. While most of us would like to help, many people are uneducated on the extraordinarily complex issues that create and sustain homelessness. 

Due to our own basic understanding of these ever-evolving issues, it makes a greater difference when we partner with and give back to organisations equipped with the infrastructure, skill and experience to combat homelessness and help in a sustainable way.

“Handouts of cash given to desperate – often mentally ill people – add fuel to the same addictions that put them on the streets. Institutions such as our partners at MES have spent decades building, perfecting and maintaining the social infrastructure to efficiently maximise the impact of our donations, and the results are inarguable,” says Jaco Wessels, COO of our appointed urban management company, Geocentric.  

Here are our top recommendations of non-profit organisations active in 2022 and how to  contribute to their vision responsibly

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Year-end update 2021 – 5-year term extension for WID & 2021 stats

Good news for Woodstock and the Woodstock Improvement District. The recent AGM, held on 3 November 2021 at the WID offices, has seen the approval of the new 5-year term extension of the Woodstock Improvement District from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2027.

Providing top-up cleaning and security services to one of Cape Town’s oldest residential and business nodes since May 2005, the Woodstock Improvement District has been under new management since September 2020. Led by Geocentric, who have been working with city improvement district initiatives since 2001 and responsible for a total of eleven of Cape Town’s improvement districts including WID and the nearby Salt River, Maitland and Wynberg, the WID’s successes of the last year are a tribute to this team’s experience and increased on-the-ground presence with more security personnel than ever before.

  • WID security - Woodstock Improvement District
  • WID security - Woodstock Improvement District

2021 Woodstock Improvement District stats

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Climate action, Cape Town and you – living a more sustainable life

While Spring makes us think “green”, it’s not all spring flowers and baby birds that are in the air. Climate change and its proactive counterpart, Climate Action, is on the world’s collective consciousness with COP26 beginning on 31 October in Glasgow, culminating in this year’s Climate Action Day on 4 November and millions of people across the world who will be out marching for climate justice on Saturday 6 November. Last month Global Day of Climate Action on 25 September, held by Fridays for Future, saw 3500 towns and cities get involved, and this month is also Youth Climate Action Day on 23 October.

But let’s take a step back…

What is Climate Change?

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