The City of Cape Town notes the Concourt ruling regarding the provincially-owned Tafelberg property – now known as 353 on Main – which the Western Cape Government already plans to develop for affordable housing. The City has made significant progress on affordable housing in this term of office, and welcomes the opportunity to file a report about this. The Concourt acknowledged that the case record is eight years out of date regarding Western Cape Government and City efforts to meet affordable housing obligations, ruling that fresh reports be filed to update the court record.
‘Eight years later, the City’s progress is undeniable, with around 4 000 affordable units entering construction in Cape Town’s inner city this year. These inner sites include Salt River Market, New Market Street (Foreshore), Pickwick (Salt River) and Fruit & Veg (CBD).
‘More sites have been released in this term of office alone than in the decade prior under the City’s Mayoral Priority Programme to accelerate affordable housing land release. The City’s overall pipeline has now grown to 12 000 affordable housing units in well-located areas, including the CBD and other economic nodes.
‘This is aside from projects already completed and tenanted, including over 200 social rental units at the inner city’s Maitland Mews, over 1 000 units at Goodwood Station, and over 400 units at Bothasig Gardens.
‘The City is also supporting various province-led affordable housing projects in central Cape Town totalling thousands of units, including at 353 on Main (the ‘Tafelberg’ site).
‘Cape Town has further uniquely adopted guidelines for selling land at below market value to maximise social housing yield and viability for developers.
‘These achievements are despite a severe lack of National Social Housing grant-funding, which remains extremely constrained and difficult to access. The City welcomes the opportunity to report to the court on this major obstacle and unacceptable situation,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Carl Pophaim.
The City further notes the Concourt’s finding that spheres of government should consult one another on land release, and trusts that this responsibility also applies to National Government, and especially the various well-located mega-properties which could yield over 100 000 affordable units on nationally-owned land, including under-used military bases and the parliamentary village.
