Can Melville regain its mojo?

As the city is hit by high-level load-shedding, water cuts, infrastructural decay and, of course, the ubiquitous potholes, once-vibrant suburbs are feeling the pinch.

Frustrated residents are increasingly trying to take the initiative and fill the vacuum left by an absent local government. For high-street suburb Melville, weathering the peaks and troughs is trying. It’s easier sailing for a live-work-play precinct such as Rosebank, where corporate investors have come to the party.

While Melville is looking to regain its mojo, Rosebank is a suburb on the up.

Melville’s 7th Street and 4th Avenue have always been much loved by artists, actors, journalists and academics. But a drive down the once vibrant streets leaves one with no doubt that the area has — again — fallen prey to urban decay.

One of Joburg’s oldest residential suburbs, Melville has seen its fair share of boom-and-bust cycles. But this time the decline of its commercial spine is particularly jarring. Many shopfronts along the 7th Street strip are papered up, and crumbling sidewalks are choked  with litter.     

Residents and business owners blame slack enforcement of municipal bylaws, unreliable service delivery and ageing infrastructure for a surge in crime and grime. Covid, of course, didn’t help. 

Julia Fish of the Melville Residents’ Association (MRA) says that from 2017 to 2019 the suburb underwent an exciting revival. Back then a number of new restaurants, coffee shops and other businesses were opening.

There was The Whippet, for example, a café with a fresh-harvest store theme and beautifully styled interiors. It set up shop in Melville Mansions, a heritage building dating from 1937 on the corner of 7th Street and 3rd Avenue.

Adding to the vibey culture were Ba-Pita, a colourful Middle Eastern-style restaurant originally from Yeoville; chef James Diack’s pizzeria La Stalla; bistro and wine bar La Petite Maison; and Pablo Eggs-Go-Bar.  

“Really interesting things were happening, and Melville was on the up again,” says Fish. Until the very end of 2019, that is, when two people were killed in a drive-by shooting at jazz café Poppy’s on New Year’s Eve.

The incident frightened many people away. And when pandemic-related lockdowns and alcohol bans were imposed a few months later, proprietors who had been on the fence about moving out took the gap. “So Melville was hit by a double whammy,” says Fish.  

Sadly, few of Melville’s hipster hangouts remain today. Instead, it seems a bunch of fly-by-night cheap bars have moved in, creating a nuisance for residents.

Fish, who manages the MRA’s land use portfolio, says drinking and rowdy partying until all hours of the morning have  become common. The knock-on effect has been an increase in opportunistic crime, with cellphone snatching a major issue.

When Parkhurst and [its] surrounds fill up and rentals rise, a more diverse mix of tenants may reconsider Melville, given the suburb’s relative value proposition

—  Ben Hatchwell

As Fish points out, the problem is that many of the new establishments don’t have the necessary usage consent from metro authorities to operate as “place[s] of amusement”. Where consent is granted, it’s often done without due process and notification, which means residents can’t object timeously to applications that will detract from Melville’s residential character. 

Fish also refers to a rise in the number of unscrupulous property investors buying family homes and turning them into overcrowded student communes — again often without the necessary land use rights. An apparent lack of bylaw enforcement also encourages noncompliance.

A water crisis hasn’t helped matters; it’s a problem that has escalated due to increased load–shedding. Because of the suburb’s elevation, water outages have become a daily occurrence as power cuts compromise the operations of the nearby Hursthill reservoir. It means taps typically run dry from midmorning to late afternoon.

Though Rand Water agreed about a year ago to install generators to keep the pumps running, nothing has come of that.

The flight of business has left behind empty buildings — and falling rentals. Ben Hatchwell, Joburg director and principal of commercial property broker OfficePlace, estimates rentals for retail and restaurant space in Melville have dropped by 20%-30% since the onset of the pandemic.

When one or two quality tenants started to leave in 2020, others followed suit, he says. Relocation to nearby Greenside and the Parks (Parkhurst, Parktown North and Parkview) was further supported by a Covid-induced increase in commercial space in these areas.

“In Parkhurst, for instance, restaurants previously had to go on a waiting list to get in. And rentals weren’t much higher there than in Melville,” Hatchwell explains. “So when more space opened up post-Covid, many grabbed the opportunity to relocate.”

The subsequent drop-off in restaurant trade meant fewer people strolling along Melville’s main drag, which affected support for other businesses in the area, he says. Rising noise levels from the “watering holes” and late-night party places that replaced restaurants also drove away residential tenants in nearby apartment blocks.

“With Melville having lost its stature as a prime restaurant destination there’s naturally a hesitancy among higher-calibre tenants to return,” says Hatchwell.

Still, he is confident that there will be a recovery at some point. “When Parkhurst and [its] surrounds fill up and rentals rise, a more diverse mix of tenants may reconsider Melville, given the suburb’s relative value proposition.”  

It’s not as though the suburb hasn’t reinvented itself in the past. And, as Hatchwell says: “There are enough long-standing residents and business owners fighting to reclaim it.”   

That’s a sentiment shared by Jovana Korac from the Melville Business Association (MBA), which is involved in various initiatives to curb crime. One of these is a plan to reopen a satellite police station in 1st Avenue, just off 7th Street.

Boom-and-bust cycles are not unusual for Melville. But the post-Covid crash has been particularly unsettling

—  What it means:

Korac says the Melville community last year raised R150,000 to refurbish the abandoned building that housed the police station until 2012. The building was ready for occupation in December, but its opening has been delayed by a shortage of available officers to staff the station. Korac hopes that will be remedied by the middle of the year.

Meanwhile, private security firm Beagle Watch was appointed to patrol Melville’s main strip from December 1. That, says Korac, has already led to a noticeable drop in petty crime.

Residents are also lobbying to turn Melville into a fully gated community. Korac says only about 40 more signatures are required to reach the 900 needed for a road enclosure application. The plan is to install a mix of 24-hour manned and remote-controlled access gates (for vehicles and pedestrians) and at least 20 permanent road closure points.

“Given Melville’s location and layout, there are about 30 different entry points. So though access control isn’t always ideal, it’s the best measure to prevent criminals [from slipping] in and out,’’ says Korac. 

The MRA is also engaging with Gauteng Tourism to open a visitor information centre in Melville. Korac believes the suburb’s unique heritage, urban village atmosphere and central location mean it’s an ideal tourist hub. The neighbourhood already boasts close to 200 Airbnb listings and 30 guest houses. 

Turning Melville into a gated suburb will no doubt have a positive spin-off on residential property values. Figures from Property24 show that house prices in the suburb have come under pressure in recent years. Average sales prices are down about 10%, from a record R1.8m in 2018 to R1.64m last year.

In stark contrast, house prices in nearby Linden have jumped by 23% over the same period — from an average R1.8m to R2.2m. Previously unfashionable, Linden has experienced a marked revival in recent years, partly on the back of its burgeoning artisanal foodie scene.  

Louis Greeff, broker manager of estate agency Re/Max Advantage, confirms that Melville may have lost some of its former residents to Linden and the more upmarket Parks area.

However, he says the suburb remains a popular hub with creative types. “It may no longer be as trendy as Parkhurst, but Melville is still a fantastic place to live. People are more laid-back and it offers better value.”

In fact, Greeff can personally attest to this, having moved from Parkhurst to Melville two years ago. He says: “We needed more space and we got twice as much house for our money in Melville than we had in Parkhurst.”

Of course, if local residents are successful in their road closure ambitions, the house price gap between Melville and some of its more upmarket neighbours may start to close. That could come as soon as in three months’ time.