For 22 years no new affordable housing has been built by the government in the inner city in Cape Town. Meanwhile property prices have risen year on year. This means that people who work in the city everyday can no longer afford to live here as rents increase. Too many people are being evicted from the homes that they have known for decades.
At the same time, many families were forcibly removed from the inner city during apartheid. Too many have never been able to return. In fact, the city is as segregated as it was during apartheid and something needs to be done to build an inclusive and integrated city. The Tafelberg site offers a small by symbolic chance to make that happen in one of the last remaining blocks of public land available in Sea Point.
The Tafelberg site is a property on Sea Point Main Road in between Milner Road and The Glen. The property had been vacant since the old Tafelberg Remedial School moved to Bothasig in 2010. It is owned by the Western Cape Provincial Department of Public Works.
In 2012 a feasibility study concluded that the property was suitable for affordable housing. In 2013 the Provincial Department of Human Settlements asked to use the site to build affordable housing.
The Department of Public Works did not take this very seriously. In 2014 they gave notice in the newspaper they wanted to lease the property together with three others. Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre wrote a letter to oppose the lease.
In 2015 they decided to sell the property so they could use the money to pay for an expensive new office block in Dorp Street for the Education Department. The Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School bought the property for R135 million.
The sale was stopped by supporters of the Reclaim the City campaign (RtC) with the help of Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre. The Public Works Department admitted that they had not followed the correct process for selling public land and agreed to reopen the sale for comments by the public.
Thousands of people sent in comments. The Province said that they had decided that the Cabinet itself would make the decision and they asked for more time to read all the submissions. Eventually the cabinet said that they could only make a decision if they knew whether affordable housing was affordable. They asked for more time to do another independent feasibility study.
On Friday 18 November 2016, the Public Works Department published this feasibility study. The study proposed a mixed-use development on the site. The study shows that it is feasible to build 270 Social Housing flats on Tafelberg.