Kyle Jacobs

Attendance

Present

44

Leave of absence

5

Absent without leave

0

Arrived late

6

Left early

1

Reasons given for leave: Private business (3), Other (1), Party business (1).

"Absent without leave" means the signed minutes of a meeting held while they were on council neither list them as present nor excuse them, and no similar name appears that day, so misspellings in the minutes don't count against anyone. Each square links to the minutes.

In the chamber

From the 10 sittings transcribed so far in their term. Times are approximate, to the nearest transcript line.

Not present when called

0

Times given the floor

1

Average wait to start

8 s

Average greetings first

0 s

In their words

Every time the chair gave them the floor in a transcribed sitting (1), newest first. The words are the AI transcript of that stretch of the livestream (Argon), so they can include the chair or an interjection; the time link is the place to check.

• 25 Jun 2026 · 05:19:327 · 4 min 14 s

  Read what they said (557 words)

  Thank you, Speaker. As the ward councillor for Auckland Park, I rise to oppose this motion. Because this motion is built on a foundation that the City of Johannesburg simply cannot meet. But let me be clear about why. Firstly, the infrastructure cannot carry this. Water supply is inadequate, electricity supply is strained, roads are deteriorating.

  Waste collection is inconsistent. These are not simply service delivery complaints, but the lived reality of people who have been patient for too long, while the city fails to maintain what already exists. The motion before us calls for densification, but it does not address the fundamental point. We need bulk infrastructure capacity first to support any of this.

  The motion recommends technical report from City Power and Joburg Water after the fact. We are being asked to endorse a direction of travel before we even know whether the road can hold the weight. That is not planning. That is recklessness dressed in a language of development. Secondly, the city cannot enforce what it already has. Let us be clear about what it, what's already happening on the ground.

  The vast majority of student accommodation in Auckland Park and surrounding areas is illegal. Properties are being converted, extended and operated without any building plans or zoning approvals. And what has the city done about it? Absolutely nothing. Bylaw enforcement is absent, and development planning appears to be uninterested.

  Inspections are not happening, penalties are not being enforced, and now we're being asked to formalize and accelerate a process that the city cannot manage informally. How does granting formal student precinct fix an enforcement crisis when the city has demonstrated that it has no capacity and no political will to enforce anything? It simply gives legal cover to chaos and opens up the door for more of it.

  Thirdly, you cannot bulldoze your way out of this problem. There is another reality that this motion ignores. A significant portion of Auckland Park's built environment consists of heritage-protected properties. These properties cannot simply be demolished to make way for high-density student developments. They are protected in law, and rightfully so, because they are part of what makes Auckland Park what it is.

  And what about the residents? Madam Speaker, perhaps what disturbs me the most about this motion is what it says and what it doesn't say about the people who actually live in Auckland Park. This motion was drafted without them. And if passed, it will reshape their neighborhood around them: their streets, their infrastructure, their safety, their quality of life, without their input.

  Long-term residents of Auckland Park are not opposed to students, and they are not opposed to development, but they have a right to be part of the decisions that fundamentally alter the character of their community. A public participation process proposed after the motion has already passed is not community engagement. This motion imposes a vision from above and asks residents to make peace with it later.

  The DA will not accept this approach. In closing, the DA supports legal student accommodation. The DA supports investment and economic growth. The DA supports densification where infrastructure planning and community consultation supports it. But the DA cannot support is the approve, approving development before infrastructure enforcement planning are in place to support it.

  For these reasons, we reject this motion.