Cape Town’s Tafelberg housing plan faces scrutiny over what will actually be built - IOL

After almost a decade of legal battles and campaigning over the future of the Tafelberg site in Sea Point, the City of Cape Town and Western Cape Government have now reported to the Western Cape High Court on their affordable-housing plans for the area.

The mix-use development concept includes 481 units, 252 for social-housing and 229 open-market units, although the province has said the numbers remain subject to further assessments and financial feasibility. The site is close to the CBD and is served by public transport routes along Main Road and High Level Road, it said.

Constitutional Court ruling three months ago, which followed a decade-long legal battle brought by housing activists, was a “David and Goliath” battle in which people such as “domestic workers in Sea Point who are bused in to work but can't stay there, won”, said Buhle Booi, Ndifuna Ukwazi's head of political organising and campaigns.

The 353 on Main project's land-use application is currently out for public comment, with the deadline for objections and representations set for 20 October. The site's heritage process was approved with conditions in June 2026.

The site is particularly significant because it was at the centre of the Tafelberg case that ultimately reached the Constitutional Court.

Constitutional Court’s landmark Tafelberg judgment found that the Western Cape Government and the City had failed to comply with their obligations relating to the implementation and completion of their respective social-housing programmes, policies and projects in the Cape Town CBD and Sea Point.

The court handed down its judgment on July 2 and ordered the province and City to submit detailed reports setting out their affordable housing programmes, projects and plans for the Cape Town CBD and Sea Point.

The City of Cape Town and WCG submitted their reports on Friday.

The City’s report does not present the Tafelberg development as a City-owned housing project. Instead, it refers to the province-led 353 on Main and Tafelberg projects among the developments it is supporting.

In its report, the City says it accepts the constitutional imperative of spatial redress and the need to take reasonable measures, within available resources, to contribute progressively to adequate housing.

However, it expressly tells the court that it is “currently not in breach” of its constitutional obligations regarding spatial integration and housing delivery.

Ndifuna Ukwazi, which was one of the organisations that challenged the Tafelberg disposal, is questioning whether the City's release of public land is translating into actual housing delivery.

Booi said being “not in breach” meant more than just releasing parcels of land. He said the organisation was still reviewing the reports after receiving them on Friday and had three weeks to respond.

“I’m not convinced of that,” Booi told The National of the City's statement that it is “currently not in breach”, questioning whether the release of public land could itself be used as a measure of whether the City was meeting its obligations.

“Not whether they are releasing parcels of land or not – it is they are not developed,” he said.

The City's own submission to the court appears to bear that out in places. Two Woodstock social housing projects, Pine Road and Dillon Lane, were awarded back in October 2019 – 267 and 150 units respectively. Six years on, both are listed in the City's report as undergoing "contract cancellation." A third project, the 343-unit Urban Peaks development in Parow, is described in the City's own submission as having "stagnated due to lack of progress with SHRA funding application," with the report stating plainly that "in the absence thereof, the project cannot materialise."

Away from the Tafelberg site, the City says it has released 14 City-owned parcels for affordable and social housing since 2017, including six in the CBD. The sites have a combined potential yield of about 7,000 residential units, including 4,000 affordable units and 2,500 social housing units.

A further 39 City-owned parcels are being packaged or prepared for release, including 11 in the CBD. The City estimates these could yield about 40,000 residential units, including approximately 21,000 affordable units and 1,500 social housing units.

The pipeline includes sites such as Woodstock Hospital, Earl Street, Three Anchor Bay and the Provincial Paving Testing Lab.

The City stresses that these figures relate to sites released or in the development pipeline and are not a claim that all the units have already been built or occupied.

Booi questioned the City's 7,000-unit and 40,000-unit potential-yield figures, saying the focus should be on clearing the existing pipeline and ensuring that land already released for housing was developed.

He said NU's assessment was that there had been no social-housing project delivered in the CBD since 1994, despite the availability of well-located public land. He said the City could not point to the release of land as evidence of spatial redress without demonstrating what had been built on it.

He said public land in the city centre should be prioritised for social housing, pointing specifically to Parliament's parking lot as an example of land that could be used for housing rather than parking.

“There are prime pieces of land and an opportunity to do this,” Booi said.

NU has previously campaigned for Parliament's parking lot, a Western Cape Government parking site known as Top Yard and two government garages on Hope Street to be redeveloped as a mixed-income housing precinct.

The City says it has also completed and tenanted more than 200 social-rental units at Maitland Mews, more than 1,000 at Goodwood Station and more than 400 at Bothasig Gardens.

The City's submission lists 5,121 completed, tenanted affordable housing units city-wide in total – including Conradie in Pinelands (1,091 units), Belhar Gardens (629), Somerlife in Somerset West (482) and Regent Villas in Mitchells Plain (274), alongside Maitland Mews and Goodwood Station. None of these completed projects, however, is located in the CBD or Sea Point – the two areas covered by the Constitutional Court's order.

It says its role includes planning, identifying and releasing land, facilitating development, providing infrastructure and creating policy mechanisms to enable affordable housing, while national government remains primarily responsible for state-subsidised housing funding.

However, the City says national funding remains a major constraint. It says affordable-housing grant funding has fallen by 41.1% since 2017, after taking inflation and population growth into account, while other housing grants have declined by about 38%.

The City says about 2,500 social-housing opportunities in the CBD and other identified areas are ready to proceed but have not received funding from the Social Housing Regulatory Authority.

In its own report, the City offers an explanation for why so few of the units in its pre-release pipeline are earmarked as social housing rather than the broader "affordable" category: "The small number allocated to social housing is a response to the lack of funding and certainty about funding for social housing from the SHRA, rather than the City's preferred mix." The City states that, with funding certainty from national government, it would be "simple enough" to shift many of these units into the social-housing column.

It says that since funding was approved for Maitland Mews in 2021, six further applications for developments on City-released land have received no funding approval, despite the City saying the projects qualified for funding.