Constitutional Court reserves judgment in historic Tafelberg housing battle
Cape Town - In a significant month marking forced removals, the Constitutional Court has reserved judgment on a case concerning housing activists against the City of Cape Town and others, regarding the Tafelberg site in Sea Point.
The matter landed in the apex court on Tuesday following a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judgment handed down last year, which ruled in favour of the Western Cape Government.
In heads of argument, Disha Govender, head of Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre said: “The province admitted that it had not built any affordable housing in central Cape Town but argued that this is not an indication of their failure to redress spatial apartheid. The City argued that it was doing its best in its plans but depended on other levels of government for land, to build affordable housing. However in our view, the City failed to account why, despite having land of its own, it has not since the dawn of democracy delivered a single social housing or other affordable housing in Central Cape Town.”
The property is over 1.7 hectares in size and has a legacy of forced removals.
Until June 2010, a portion of it was used as the Western Cape Education Department’s Tafelberg Remedial School and a portion known as erf 1675 and 1424 was used by the Provincial Department of Human Settlements as affordable state-rental housing known as the Wyngard Mansions site.
Litigation was then prompted following the sale of the property to the highest bidder, the Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School, with a price tag of R135 million in 2015.
Eduard Fagan, Senior Counsel for the Western Cape Government, on Tuesday argued for the leave to appeal against the SCA ruling to be dismissed.
Nazreen Bawa, Senior Counsel for the City of Cape Town, said: “This relief now being sought is not consonant with the procedures of this Court, which should not be lightly, and so flagrantly be ignored. Noticeably, again the national Government is not to be subjected to this relief notwithstanding that it remains, on the evidence, a significant owner of land that the City has sought to acquire (and still does).”
Ndifuna Ukwazi highlighted that the month of February marked a legacy of forced removals in the Western Cape.
“The hearing date carries deep historical significance. On 11 February 1966, the apartheid government declared District Six a White Group Area, displacing over 60 000 residents and dismantling a thriving multicultural community. Just days earlier, on 9 February 1955, a similar fate befell Johannesburg’s Western Areas, including Sophiatown, where another 60 000 people were forcibly removed under the Group Areas Act.”
They added that the case unfolds against a backdrop of rising political tensions concerning land reform in South Africa and in the broader global context of displacement and human rights.
Mpho Raboeane, Executive Director of Ndifuna Ukwazi said:
“The Tafelberg case is a defining test of South Africa’s commitment to undoing spatial apartheid. Despite commitments to land reform, affordable housing in urban areas and undoing spatial apartheid, political will and decisive action remain in question.
“We now look to the courts to clarify the state’s obligation and uphold the constitutional vision of spatial transformation. "
Melt Botes, spokesperson for Infrastructure MEC Tertuis Simmers, said they would be responding on the matter soon.