The GOOD Party has strongly criticised the City of Cape Town following a recent Constitutional Court ruling concerning the long-running Tafelberg School site dispute.

The ruling found that both the City and the Western Cape provincial government failed to meet their constitutional obligations regarding access to adequate housing, and it set aside the 2015 sale of the Sea Point property.The court also ordered both spheres of government to submit detailed reports on their affordable housing plans and delivery track records.

GOOD mayoral candidate Brett Herron, who previously served in Cape Town’s mayoral committee for Transport and Urban Development, said the City’s reaction to the judgment showed a lack of accountability and an unwillingness to confront years of delays in addressing spatial inequality.

He pointed out that in 2017 the City had identified multiple well-located land parcels, including in the inner city, Salt River and Woodstock, for affordable housing development, but argued that these promises had not materialised into actual housing delivery.

Herron further claimed that no affordable homes had been delivered in Cape Town’s inner city since 2017, describing repeated housing announcements as unfulfilled commitments.He accused the City of repeatedly re-announcing stalled projects while failing to deliver tangible results on the ground.

According to him, this pattern reflects a broader failure to transform the city’s apartheid-era spatial planning, which continues to concentrate opportunity and services in historically privileged areas.

The City of Cape Town has argued that it has made significant progress in its housing pipeline, including projects that are entering construction phases and future developments in planning.However, Herron dismissed these claims as misleading and insufficient in addressing urgent housing needs and inequality.

The Constitutional Court’s ruling is expected to have wider implications for how governments prioritise well-located public land for affordable housing.

Housing activists see it as a significant step in pushing both municipal and provincial authorities to accelerate inclusive urban development and address longstanding spatial injustices.