GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & City of Cape Town Mayoral Candidate
07 August 2026
Instead of drafting a short-term letting by-law designed to contribute to alleviating the crisis of unaffordability in the Cape Town housing market, the only beneficiary of the proposed by-law is the City itself, which will increase its income by charging slightly higher rates.
The essence of the by-law is that owners of properties on the short-term rental market for more than half of the year should pay commercial, not residential rates. What that practically means is that owners of R3m apartments out for rent on Airbnb will see their rates bills increase by about R1500 a month.
That’s more-or-less equivalent to one night’s rental – hardly sufficient incentive to have short-term letters rushing to make their properties available to locals on the long-term rental market.
But when you consider that there are up to 30 000 Cape Town listings on Airbnb, it’s tidy extra income for the City.
This by-law won’t remotely affect the housing crisis; its purpose is to give the appearance of doing something without actively shifting market forces.
It’s another expression (together with selling off prime land and failing to build affordable dwellings in well-located neighbourhoods) of the DA-led City and Western Cape Provincial Government’s single-mindedness in leveraging property it owns or collects revenue from for profit instead of for public good.
In a City with a housing backlog of more than 600 000 households, where tiny studio apartments cost several million Rands – way out of reach of the vast majority of residents – the DA regards increasing housing unaffordability as a measure of its success. Because what it means is that its well-heeled constituents with property (or multiple properties) in good areas are laughing their way to the bank…
If Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis doesn’t want to discourage the short-term rental trend, and doesn’t want to prioritise the development of affordable houses, either, he is effectively sentencing Cape Town’s less well-off residents, many of whom bear the unhealed scars of apartheid forced removals, to another generation of social injustice.
The answer is not to punish the short-term rental market, or relatively privileged property owners; it is to acknowledge the housing crisis that Cape Town is in and seek to balance the rights of property owners against the interests of those without safe and secure spaces to raise their families. In that way, we develop a sustainable and inclusive city.
If extra taxation for properties on the short-term rental market is the chosen option, the extra taxes must be of a quantum that property owners seriously consider whether the long-term market is not the better option for them. The purpose of the extra taxation would be to try and move more properties to the long-term market.
But that would require a Mayor of sufficient brevity and social conscience to understand that, while great for property owners, Cape Town’s steepling property prices profoundly contribute to its housing crisis. What we have, instead, is a Mayor schooled in the game of Monopoly.