City of Cape Town in hot water for selling school grounds worth R135 million

The Constitutional Court has ruled that the City of Cape Town’s decision to sell the former Tafelberg School site in Sea Point in 2015 was unlawful.

The ruling has brought an almost decade-long court battle to a close, and overturned an earlier decision from the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2024 to uphold the sale.

The ConCourt found that the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape government had not followed proper public participation processes in the disposal of the land.

By selling the schoolground to the Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School, the City was found to have failed to make adequate provision for affordable housing in the city centre.

Although the R135 million sale was ultimately set aside by the Western Cape High Court in 2020, it remained a contentious issue up until the recent ConCourt ruling.

The case has been touted as a prime example of the City of Cape Town’s failure to address spatial segregation, which dates back to the era of Apartheid.

“As a well-located and amenity-rich suburb, Sea Point remains largely inaccessible to lower-income communities,” the Constitutional Court said.

“The apparent reluctance to develop social housing there seems rooted in a desire to preserve the area’s character for its affluent, predominantly white, residents.”

Social housing activist groups such as Ndifuna Ukwazi argued that poorer, working-class families had consistently been pushed to the outer fringes of the City.

This forced many of them to commute much further for work in the city-centre, and excluded them from social amenities found in more upmarket areas such as Sea Point or the CBD.

In an interview with SABC News, Ndifuna Ukwazi’s Head of Political Organising and Campaigns Buhle Booi described the ConCourt judgement as “vindicating”.

“It’s a huge victory not only for the city of Cape Town, but it’s a victory for all working class people in this country,” Booi said.

“This is a judgement that has implications not only for this province, but for all the municipalities and provinces across the country.”

The City of Cape Town responds

Following the delivery of the Constitutional Court’s judgement, the City of Cape Town published a media statement in response to the ruling.

The City claimed it had already begun planning to develop the former Tafelberg School site, now known as 353 on Main, into affordable housing.

It also pointed to its current track record for social housing development, and said it would welcome the opportunity to provide the Court with a detailed report about this.

As part of the ConCourt’s ruling, the City must now report directly to the Western Cape High Court on its progress to develop affordable housing and address spatial inequality.

According to the Constitutional Court, the case record regarding the Western Cape Government’s progress on social housing development is eight years out of date.

“Eight years later, the City’s progress is undeniable, with around 4,000 affordable units entering construction in Cape Town’s inner city this year,” the City’s MMC for Human Settlements Carl Pophaim said.

“More sites have been released in this term of office alone than in the decade prior under the City’s Mayoral Priority Programme to accelerate affordable housing land release.”

Pophaim claimed that the City’s overall affordable housing pipeline had grown to encompass 12,000 units in areas of economic significance, such as the CBD.

This figure did not include more than 1,000 social housing units which had reportedly already been completed and tenanted across areas such as Bothasig, Maitland Mews, and Goodwood Station.

Additionally, Pophaim said the City had adopted guidelines to sell land below market value as a means of maximising viability and yield for social housing developers.

“These achievements are despite a severe lack of National Social Housing grant-funding, which remains extremely constrained and difficult to access,” Pophaim said.

“The City welcomes the opportunity to report to the court on this major obstacle and unacceptable situation.”