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Stuff from Johannesburg

SVR4 Opened for Public Inspection

The City of Johannesburg has announced that the Supplementary Valuation Roll 4 (SVR4) for the financial year 2026/2027 will be open for public inspection from 14 October 2026 until 30 November 2026.

Kgamanyane Maphologela, Director for Communications and Stakeholder Management in Group Finance Department, encourages residents and property owners to inspect the Supplementary Valuation Roll and, if necessary, lodge objections to any entry they believe is incorrect.

“Residents are encouraged to inspect the Supplementary Valuation Roll and, if necessary, lodge objection to any entry they believe to be incorrect,” says Maphologela. “In terms of the Local Government: Municipal Property Act No. 6 of 2004, objections must relate to specific individual properties and not the Supplementary Valuation Roll as a whole.”

The Supplementary Valuation Roll will be available for viewing at:

  • Jorissen Place – 66 Jorissen Street, Braamfontein (East Wing, 1st Floor)
  • Online – via the City’s website at www.joburg.org.za under the GVR Online section.

The City urges residents to use the online objection system, where an acknowledgement letter will be automatically generated as proof of submission. The acknowledgment letter should be kept as proof that the objection was submitted.

For enquiries, please contact the City’s Valuation Services on: valuationenquiries@joburg.org.za

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Top Star Drive-In: Destroyed by What Created it

However, the very thing that created the Top Star eventually destroyed it. Because the early miners had used crude methods, the Ferreira Dump—and dozens of others like it—still contained significant traces of gold. As the price of gold rose and new chemical extraction technologies (like the carbon-in-pulp process) made it profitable to “mine the waste,” the ground beneath the Top Star became more valuable than the cinema itself. In 2006, despite fierce opposition from heritage groups who argued that the dump and the drive-in were culturally significant landmarks, the projectors were turned off for the last time.

The reclamation of the dump was a staggering industrial feat. Starting in 2008, mining giant DRDGold used high-pressure water cannons to “monitor” the dump, turning 5 million tons of solid earth back into a liquid slurry. This slurry was then piped 40 kilometers across the province to a processing plant in Brakpan. By 2011, the “mountain” had completely vanished. The 50-meter-high plateau that had dominated the southern skyline for a century was reduced to a flat, dusty crater.

The disappearance of the Top Star is a poignant symbol of Johannesburg’s “extractive” nature. It is a city that consumes itself to stay alive; even its historical landmarks are subject to the fluctuating price of minerals on the London and New York stock exchanges. Today, if you drive along the M2, there is an empty space in the sky where the Top Star used to be. While the reclamation removed a source of toxic dust and “acid mine drainage,” it also erased a piece of the city’s collective memory. The land where the gold-flecked mountain once stood is now being rehabilitated for light industrial use, proving that in eGoli, even the horizon is for sale if there’s enough gold hidden inside it.