GOOD Speech by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament
02 October 2025
Note to editor: This speech was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament Brett Herron during today’s interpellation debate on the Tafelberg site for affordable housing
Speaker, I have been attending the public engagements on the planning process for the packaging of the Tafelberg School site for a housing and commercial development. The most recent presentation of the 353-on-Main project, as it is now called, made it clear that if all goes according to schedule the planning applications required to build this development would only commence in March 2026.
If we are optimistic, it will be 2030 before we see a resident move into social housing on that site. This means that it would have taken this government 20 years from when the site first became identified for social housing ‘til when that social housing is actually delivered. We know that 20 years is as a direct result of dogmatic anti-poor ideology that dominates the Democratic Alliance leadership.
It was the former Premier, Helen Zille, herself who told me that using well-located, and thus high value, land for affordable and social housing would amount to “over-subsidising the poor”. This dogma has led to where we are today. 20 years of DA government in the City of Cape Town and 16 years of DA government in the Province but not a single affordable home or social housing unit delivered in the Cape Town city centre.
Unlike many failures in government – this is not a systemic failure. Both the City and the Province are claimed to be well-run, with sound finances and properly qualified administrations. All of this good governance can deliver these types of projects much faster.
The only reason this hasn’t happened is the lack of political will linked to a resentment of transformation and a deviant view of who public land belongs to and what role it can play in addressing both our housing shortage and spatial transformation.
It is shameful that lots of public land, which has been available for social housing for decades, is being toyed with. The games being played have denied people their right to housing and to redress for decades.