GOOD Secretary-General and City of Cape Town mayoral candidate Brett Herron has warned that the City risks another court defeat if it proceeds with the controversial sale of the Good Hope Centre without heeding last week’s landmark Constitutional Court judgment on the Tafelberg property.
Image: FILE
GOOD Secretary-General and City of Cape Town mayoral candidate Brett Herron has warned that the City risks another court defeat if it proceeds with the controversial sale of the Good Hope Centre without heeding last week’s landmark Constitutional Court judgment on the Tafelberg property.
Herron said the unanimous July 2 ruling, which declared the 2015 sale of the Tafelberg School site in Sea Point unlawful, should serve as a warning to Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and the DA-led City administration. According to Herron, the judgment reinforces the constitutional duty of government to use well-located public land to advance affordable housing and undo apartheid-era spatial inequality.
“If the City ignores this judgment, it risks being rapped over the knuckles again,” Herron said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
The Constitutional Court’s decision in Adonisi and Others v Minister for Transport and Public Works, Western Cape and Others brought to an end nearly a decade of litigation over the Western Cape government’s decision to sell the former Tafelberg Remedial School site to the Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School for R135 million.
The case, spearheaded by Reclaim the City and the Ndifuna Ukwazi Trust, challenged the sale on the grounds that government had failed to properly consider the property’s potential for affordable housing in one of Cape Town’s best-located suburbs.
In a unanimous judgment delivered by all nine judges, the court found that the provincial government had wrongly declared the property surplus while it was still under consideration for social housing. It also ruled that public participation occurred only after the sale agreement had effectively been concluded, reducing consultation to what the court described as little more than a box-ticking exercise.
The ruling overturned an earlier Supreme Court of Appeal decision and ordered both the Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town to report back within three months on concrete plans to expand affordable housing in the Cape Town CBD, Sea Point and other well-located areas.
Importantly, the court held that the constitutional right to adequate housing cannot be separated from location, finding that governments cannot fulfil their obligations simply by building homes on cheaper land on the urban outskirts while retaining valuable inner-city land for other purposes.
Following the judgment, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Carl Pophaim, said the municipality welcomed the opportunity to present its affordable housing programme, pointing to approximately 4,000 units currently entering construction and a broader pipeline of about 12,000 homes in well-located areas.
Herron argued that the Constitutional Court judgment directly applies to the City’s proposed disposal of the Good Hope Centre.
He said the ruling reaffirmed two key principles: that public assets should be used in the public interest and that governments have a constitutional obligation to address apartheid’s spatial legacy through the strategic use of well-located land.
“The steep price of property in well-located parts of Cape Town makes it unaffordable to the vast majority of residents of colour, and therefore a formidable barrier to the development of an inclusive, just and sustainable city,” Herron said.
“If the State does not leverage the public assets it controls to develop affordable housing in areas previously reserved for Whites, including in the inner city of Cape Town and surrounds, the City will forever remain trapped in its pre-1994 spatial pattern of forced segregation.”
The Good Hope Centre, the iconic domed exhibition and events venue on Sir Lowry Road designed by renowned Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, formed part of a portfolio of 53 City-owned properties auctioned in February.
The property reportedly attracted a highest bid of R135 million, a figure that property specialists described as favourable given its location and heritage significance. The building carries Grade 3B heritage protection, meaning its defining architectural features cannot be demolished or substantially altered.
Shortly after the auction, Pastor John Anosike of Spirit Revelation Ecclesia, also known as New World Faith Ministries, announced that his church had successfully secured the property, describing the acquisition as the biggest step of faith in the ministry’s history. Fellow pastor Thelma Lewis similarly celebrated the purchase on social media, calling the building “a gate in Cape Town” that the church had now taken.
The City, however, has consistently maintained that no sale has been finalised. It says the successful bid remains subject to an extensive post-auction due diligence process, including verification of tax compliance, financial capability and heritage-related requirements. In April, Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth James Vos said there was no fixed timeline for concluding that assessment.
The auction itself proceeded despite an urgent High Court application by a Khoi-San group and land activists seeking to halt the sale of the Good Hope Centre and several other municipal properties.
GOOD also opposed the disposal at the time, arguing that once approximately R4.7 million in recent public upgrades and a further R100 million in planned budget allocations linked to the site were considered, the effective sale price was considerably lower than advertised. The party called on the City to release all valuation reports and feasibility studies underpinning the transaction.
Herron placed political responsibility for the proposed sale squarely on Mayor Hill-Lewis, saying the DA leader was ultimately accountable for decisions taken by both the City administration and the DA-led Western Cape government.
He also criticised Hill-Lewis for previously dismissing the concept of “spatial justice”. In an interview with Daily Maverick last year, the mayor argued that references to spatial apartheid had become political propaganda rather than an accurate reflection of modern Cape Town.
Herron argued that the Constitutional Court judgement had undermined that position by recognising that apartheid spatial planning continues to shape housing access and inequality.
“These principles are fundamentally at odds with the City of Cape Town’s decision to sell the Good Hope Centre to an evangelical church, rather than retain the Centre as a civic space while using the surrounding land for mixed-use development that includes affordable housing,” Herron said.
“After the identity of the successful bidder became public in February, the City sought to distance itself by saying the auction outcome was not final until it had been reviewed. It must be a very thorough review because, five months later, the outcome is still unknown.”
The Constitutional Court has ordered the City and the Western Cape government to report back within three months on their progress and future plans for delivering affordable housing on well-located land.
Herron said he hoped Hill-Lewis would use that period to reconsider the Good Hope Centre sale.
“One trusts Hill-Lewis will have had the opportunity to study the judgment by then and reverse this ill-conceived decision,” Herron said.
“If he does not, apart from what that says about his values, he risks facing another legal challenge and being rapped over the knuckles again.”
The City of Cape Town had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication.
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