Housing activists demand release of Tafelberg site in latest petition

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18-09-2024
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CapeTownetc
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Another petition has landed at Premier Alan Winde’s door, seeking his intervention to use prime provincial land in Sea Point for social housing,  Cape {town} Etc reports.

 A Constitutional Court ruling is still pending on the decision to sell the land to a private school in Sea Point.

The site has been the subject of a heated court battle between Reclaim the City and the Western Cape government.

In 2015, a controversy arose when the provincial government made the decision to sell prime real estate in Sea Point, opting to forgo its use for affordable housing development.

The provincial government owned the Tafelberg school property and sold it to Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School NPC in November 2015 for R135 million.

But organisations Reclaim The City and Ndifuna Ukwazi, along with several individuals challenged the move.

GroundUp reported that in a landmark judgment in 2020, the Western Cape High Court set aside the sale of the property and ordered the province and the City of Cape Town to ‘address the legacy of apartheid spatial planning in central Cape Town and its surrounds.’

In an April 2024 ruling, the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the legality of the province and the City’s decision to sell the land for R135 million to a private school.

The court confirmed that the government is not legally obligated to provide social housing in any specific location.

In a June 2024 press release, Ndifuna Ukwazi highlighted that on 8 February 2024, the province issued notices at the site and on their website, inviting any ‘Interested and Affected Party’ to register their interest in participating in a 2 year ‘exploration process’ on the development of the 353 on Main Road site in Sea Point by 11 March.’

Ndifuna Ukwazi suggests that the province is intentionally trying to erase the memory and significance of the ongoing struggle by avoiding the use of the name ‘Tafelberg.’

With this in mind, the organisation launched a petition two weeks ago.

The petition calls for the Tafelberg Road site to be allocated for social and affordable housing, with a particular focus on domestic workers employed in the area.

Ndifuna Ukwazi researcher, Nick Budlender, said in the petition: ‘We had 350 years of very direct, intentional state action to build a housing system that benefits the white minority at the expense of the black and coloured majority, and we’re going to need similarly intense and direct state intervention if we’re ever going to overcome that.’

‘We demand that Premier Alan Winde must release the Tafelberg (site) to the City of Cape Town to develop the site into much needed social housing units.’

‘Since the dawn of democracy, not a single affordable housing unit has been built in the inner city of Cape Town, highlighting a total lack of political will within the city and province.’