Cape Town – The highly anticipated meeting where it will be determined whether so-called affordable housing is possible in Sea Point is expected to take place in a week’s time.
Premier Helen Zille’s cabinet will be the decision-makers on the future of the contentious multi-million rand Tafelberg property.
The R135 million sale of the property to the Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School in Camps Bay in May last year was halted after Reclaim the City and Ndifuna Ukwazi petitioned the Western Cape High Court to intervene.
As per the court’s orders, the provincial Department of Transport and Public Works published the financial model for public comment on November 18.
The public participation process concluded a month ago. The department’s Jacqueline Gooch had previously maintained the financial modelling was “not a proposal for housing on the Tafelberg site”.
Ndifuna Ukwazi on Tuesday published its own model for a social housing development on the land, which it said would provide “more homes at less cost while still providing province with a significant cash injection from the sale of the land”.
Ndifuna Ukwazi researcher Julian Sendin said numbers for the department’s model – encompassing a mixed-use development with 270 social housing units – were found not to add up.
Ndifuna Ukwazi’s submission to the provincial government detailed that 297 social housing apartments could be built on the site if they were subsidised by a development on Main Road with shops and 86 market rate apartments.
Sendin said: “Not only would province secure 27 more social housing units and build the first mixed-income housing in the inner city, but the model would provide a whopping R75m cash payment for the land.
“That is over half the price the province intended to strip the land for with no social benefit.”