GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & City of Cape Town Mayoral Candidate
02 July 2026
The Constitutional Court has dismantled a central pillar of the DA’s policy to maintain spatial injustice in Cape Town, ordering that the fact that public land has a high value should not preclude it from being used to address governments’ constitutional obligations to transformation.
In a scathing judgment setting aside the province’s plans for developing the Tafelberg School site, in Sea Point, the Constitutional Court found that the City of Cape Town and Western Cape Government approaches to social and affordable housing “perpetuated spatial inequality” and “fell short of Constitutional standard”.
Instead of spending resources on PR about future social and affordable housing plans, the province has been ordered to submit a report under oath (a.) Setting out its affordable housing plans and, (b.) Reporting on the number of affordable houses actually delivered in the inner-city and surrounds since the launch of the Tafelberg litigation in 2017.
It’ll have lots of old speeches to roll out in response to Point (a.). But Point (b.) will be more noteworthy as the answer is zero. Going all the way back to 1994…
Today’s judgement is momentous, affirming the obligations of City and Provincial governments to oversee the progressive realisation of rights conferred by the Constitution.
In 2000, in the so-called Grootboom case, the Constitutional Court affirmed the state’s duty to progressively provide access to adequate housing. Today’s judgement adds the constitutional requirement for societal transformation, ordering that location matters.
The Tafelberg property is important because over the years it has become a fulcrum on which the future of spatial justice (or continuing injustice) in Cape Town rested.
The court rejected the City and Province’s argument that their hands were tied when it came to housing delivery because they depended on resources from National Government, ordering them to find the resources to discharge their obligations.
When South Africa celebrated the demise of apartheid in 1994, few would have imagined that, 32 years later, the spatial plan built on forced removals, land grabs and colour-coded physical separation would have been so diligently retained.
Rather than progressively dismantling the iniquitous apartheid plan the City and Province sought to normalise it, speaking the language of “better services for the Cape Flats” while studiously avoiding talk of integration.
They have collectively developed no affordable housing in suburbs previously declared White Group Areas. Such public housing as has been delivered slavishly follows the old spatial template.
Under the DA’s management, a valuable property such as the Tafelberg one should be sold to the highest bidder while people working in Sea Point should live in Khayelitsha or Kuils River and pay the public transport costs.
In this regard, the Court’s order that the Province and City are obliged to take housing location into account in determining what constitutes reasonable housing delivery hits the nail on the head.
Finally, the Court’s finding that the province had failed to conduct a meaningful public engagement process in the Tafelberg matter is important as it puts a handbrake on the City’s evident fire-sale of public land.