Cape Town – The decision by the Western Cape government on Wednesday to sell off the controversial Tafelberg remedial school site is likely to result in another legal tussle.
The provincial government agreed to go ahead with the R135 million sale of the land to the Phyllis Jowell Day School in Camps Bay despite opposition from activist groups Reclaim the City and Ndifuna Ukwazi.
The groups had petitioned for the land to be developed into affordable housing for the hundreds of workers who cannot afford to live close to their places of work.
Reclaim the City described the decision to sell as "unjust and an insult to black and coloured working class people throughout Cape Town".
"We will never accept the stripping of our well-located public land – land that could and should be used for affordable housing – to private entities," Daneel Knoetze, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.
"We are planning a robust response, after consultation with our lawyers, housing experts and our supporters," he said.
Western Cape ANC spokesperson Cameron Dugmore said: "We will also be seeking a meeting with the Phyllis Jowell Day School, to request them, in the public interest and in support of social housing for the domestic workers of Sea Point and others, to withdraw from the sale."
The Western Cape High Court granted a stay of the sale after it was approached by the groups in May 2016 in order for a public participation process on the sale to play out.
The process, as ordered by the court, concluded last month.
Premier Helen Zille's spokesperson, Michael Mpofu, said Cabinet resolved that the Tafelberg site was "not ideally suited to affordable housing, especially as the state subsidy cannot be utilised there under current national policy".