New plans are afoot for the contentious Tafelberg site in Sea Point, Cape Town. This followed a drawn-out battle between housing activists and the Western Cape provincial government, which owns the land.
Activists, who argued that the site would best serve a growing need for affordable housing and spatial redress, were deadset against the initial private sale of the land.
The authorities have now offered up a section of the site to develop affordable housing, while the rest will be used for social development purposes.
The future of the Tafelberg site has been a bone of contention for a decade. With calls for it to be developed into social and affordable housing in the upmarket area situated along the Atlantic Seaboard.
The matter has been in and out of court, since the provincial’s government decade-old decision to sell the piece of prime land, instead of developing it to address the City’s much-needed housing shortage crisis.
The case is currently before the Constitutional Court. But this week, the provincial government announced new plans for the site.
The provincial MEC for Infrastructure, Tertuis Simmers says the current demands are very different to ten years ago.
“Our plan has always been for the remainder of the site as per the infographic I showed you to actually focus on affordable housing and in the Western Cape context focussed on variable forms of ownership on that specific site which speaks to the reality in the surrounding area, so in terms of the way forward in partnership with social development my department is the custodian of the land, they have expressed an interest in one portion of the site we will now allow them to do their planning and modelling in terms of what mr Londt said given the various social needs that are ever increasing in his sector within our province.”
The envisioned use of the site will see about 7 300 square metres of land allocated to use for mixed affordable housing.
The bigger section of 8 600 square metres is earmarked for social development initiatives and programmes, says the provincial MEC of Social Development, Jaco Londt.
“We have older persons that sometimes do not have a place to go to, we have sometimes people with disabilities that do not have a place to go to there are children that are in need of facilities and that is something that DSD cannot deliver on its own and that is why we are incredibly excited about this partnership.”
Housing activists, who staged a protest following the announcement – are not objecting to the proposal itself, but are dissatisfied about not being meaningfully engaged. They have described the government’s proposal as a vindication of their decade-long fight for spatial justice.
The timing of the provincial government’s concession is not lost on Boohle Booi from Ndifuna Ukwazi – an activist organisation.
“In fact, it is us that for eight years have been calling for that site to be used for affordable housing so what they are saying is really vindicating us that we were correct all along to say it was possible to build affordable housing. You would know that we did about nine feasibility studies that said about 270 units of affordable housing are possible on that site and that for the past eight years those feasibility studies were ignored, it’s only now they say it can be used for affordable housing which we welcome but we are very shocked about the timing of this announcement because it comes on the back of the ConCourt coming on the 11th of February.”
While the Concourt will provide a ruling on its previous disposal process, the Western Cape is confident that the judgement will l enable them to use a portion of the site for affordable housing.
