Cape Town - Two years after the Western Cape High Court set aside the sale of the Tafelberg School site in Sea Point and no action from the premier, Ndifuna Ukwazi has renewed calls to Alan Winde to release the site to build affordable housing for the marginalised and advance a spatially just and inclusive city.
The organisation said that despite the premier’s commitment in 2019 and a 2016 feasibility study conducted by the provincial Department of Transport and Public Works, which concluded that the Tafelberg site was suitable for social housing, no brick had been laid.
It said the provincial government was missing a critical opportunity to reverse apartheid spatial planning, and appealed to Winde to demonstrate leadership and show commitment in developing Tafelberg and other publicly owned parcels of land for affordable and social housing.
Reclaim the City chapter leader Bevil Lucas said: “It is with dismay to realise the approach adopted in the post-apartheid society and how the DA is taking a political stance in upholding apartheid spatial planning in not committing itself to undo it, which is continuing to block people to live closer to the areas of work.
“How is possible that close to 30 years after the end of apartheid, there isn’t one site for the working class in Sea Point (or) Camps Bay?
“The working class has to commute from the Cape Flats for almost two hours a day, and that cannot be acceptable.”
GOOD Party secretary-general Brett Herron said that when the provincial government turned its back on its obligation and promised to develop affordable rental housing at the Tafelberg site, the abandoned Helen Bowden Nurses Home in Green Point was occupied.
“Meantime, acting with huge resentment, the Western Cape government disconnected basic services to the old nurses’ home occupied by about 1 000 adults and children.
“Political will is absent and restructuring government is just another illusion of something being done. Providing well-located affordable housing doesn’t need a government department to restructure.
“It could have been achieved over the past 30 years since the Group Areas Act was abolished, but it hasn’t been because there’s no will to do so,” Herron said.
Odette Cason, from the Office of the Premier, said the property was returned to the provincial government’s property portfolio, which is considering its best use in line with its priorities to deliver jobs, safety and well-being in the province.
“On the judgment handed down by the Western Cape High Court on the Tafelberg matter, we embrace the finding that there is a constitutional obligation to redress the effects of spatial apartheid.
“We are fully committed to addressing spatial apartheid and providing social housing in well-located areas,” she said.
“It is our view that the court made a range of orders that impact the ability of the Western Cape government to govern as an independent sphere as envisaged by the Constitution. It is for this reason, among others set out in our response, that we sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal,” Cason said.