Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says the City will vigorously oppose the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) politicised application attempting to interdict the release of 49 municipal sites for various forms of development, including residential opportunities in many lower and middle-income communities.

‘This interdict attempt comes some six months after the SAHRC’s initial enquiries were addressed by the City. It appears more like electioneering coming a week before elections, and many months or even years after these individual sites have been through extensive land release processes, including public participation. The SAHRC made no objections then, nor have they made any similar objections to land release in other cities.

‘The SAHRC is behaving like a political party, not a credible Chapter 9 organisation. If they want to throw away their credibility trying to stop any policy differentiation that delivers better public outcomes in Cape Town, fine, but we will oppose them vigorously,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.

While the SAHRC claims its interdict application is affordable housing-related, the 49 sites do in fact include 28 residential-zoned properties to serve the local demand for housing in various areas, including Mitchells Plain, Maitland, Goodwood, Kraaifontein, Somerset West and Durbanville.

Commercial and industrial opportunities were similarly available during the transparent public auction process in February 2026. These are set to create employment and economic activity in areas including Atlantis, Mitchells Plain, Delft and Parow.

‘We’ve engaged the SAHRC extensively, providing the full details of all these sites and their suitability for either commercial, industrial, or residential opportunities to serve local housing demand in various lower and middle-income communities,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.

The City conducts extensive analysis of all municipal land to determine which sites are suitable for housing. More sites have been released in this term of office alone than in the decade prior, as part of the Mayoral Priority Programme to accelerate affordable housing land release.

In total, the City has so far released 14 sites for affordable housing purposes - including six inner-city sites -  with a combined yield of 7 000 residential units, including 4 000 affordable housing units and 2 500 Social Housing units.

A further 39 sites are in the release pipeline - including 11 in the CBD – with a 40 000-unit combined yield, including 21 000 affordable housing units and 1 500 social housing units.
This is aside from projects already completed and tenanted, including over 200 social rental units at the inner city’s Maitland Mews, over 1 000 units at Goodwood Station, and over 400 units at Bothasig Gardens.

Land release generates R628m for service delivery
Revenue from land release gets pumped back into services and infrastructure, with R628m generated in the term of office.

Overall, land release during the term generated 70 commercial / industrial opportunities to expand jobs and investment; 55 social care and community opportunities; and affordable housing sites with a combined yield of thousands of well-located residential units. 

Rather than have state land lie idle, the City is leveraging land for economic development, social good, and affordable residential opportunities.

Based on national Human Settlements Department data, more state-subsidised houses have been handed over in Cape Town than anywhere else in the past five years, and also in the last 30 years since 1994.

In the last five years, 12 401 units were handed over in Cape Town, more than double the next metro, eThekwini (5 355). It is also more than all three Gauteng metros combined, with Ekhuruleni (5 167), Joburg (4 932), and Tshwane (1 811) still falling close to 500 units short of Cape Town’s total.

As part of its strategic shift to enable much more affordable housing, the City:

• passed land discount guidelines to make developments viable
• funded bulk and site infrastructure
• offered rates discounts in perpetuity on properties used for social housing projects
• discounted monthly utility bills for tenants
• used mixed-income and mixed-use development models to cross-subsidise affordable units
• undertaken rezoning and project preparation to lower project costs
• provided technical support to social housing developers

Micro-developer support

The City is further pursuing its innovative micro-developer support programme, including:

• Major Municipal Planning By-law amendments to make it easier for residents to build small-scale affordable units on their properties
• R20m incentive fund to help micro-developers fund the cost of bulk infrastructure connections
• New Local Planning Support Programme in informal communities to connect support staff directly with local micro-developers

City reforms to help micro-developers build affordable rental units are expected to make the largest difference over time in enabling residents of Cape Town informal settlements to escape informality and live in dignified, affordable, formal accommodation. 

Council Rental Units

The City further maintains a very large stock of around 50 000 Council Rental Units, with heavily subsidised rental units and maintenance to the tune of R977 million rand a year without any state grant funding.

A unique new ‘No Cost Transfer Programme’ has also been created to make homeowners of tenants who live in Council-owned properties which are free-standing, semi-detached or maisonette style. Since 2017, over 14 000 of these transfers have taken place at no cost to the recipient, representing hundreds of millions of rands worth of asset transfers.
National funding constraints

Cape Town’s pioneering achievements are despite a severe lack of National Social Housing grant funding, which remains extremely constrained and difficult to access.

Since 2017, there has been a 41,1% decrease in total national grant funding for affordable housing, when adjusting for inflation and population growth. Likewise, there is a 38% decrease in the other housing grants - HSDG, USDG, and ISUPG – nationally over the same period.

There are 2 500 social housing opportunities which the City and developers could immediately begin construction on in the CBD and surrounding areas but which have failed to receive funding from the SHRA.

For five years since the SHRA’s funding approval in 2021 for the metro’s inner-city Maitland Mews development – now complete and tenanted - there have been no further funding approvals for developments on City-released land despite six submissions.

Five of these six submissions were for inner-city land parcels, all of which qualified for funding, with none awarded.  

The City also has a wider portfolio of construction-ready or near-ready social housing opportunities that cannot proceed without national funding approval. The resulting delay places previously prepared projects, development partnerships and the land at risk.

The City is now pivoting from state-subsidised social housing to affordable housing, as defined by the Financial Sector Code’s Affordable Housing Standard. Instead of national grant-funding, this is being subsidised by mixed-use development.