Bo-Kaap Residents Call For Airbnb to Be Regulated

Bo-Kaap, known for its colourful houses and cobble-stone streets, is a popular area for tourists. But residents say the rise in short-term rentals is a threat to their heritage.

• The Bo-Kaap Civic and Ratepayers Association want Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms to be regulated.
• Families who have lived in Bo-Kaap for generations can no longer afford to stay there, the association says.
• The City of Cape Town says it plans to start registering short-term rentals and to ensure commercial property rates are applied to residential properties being used for accommodation businesses.

Residents of Bo-Kaap, a historic inner-city neighbourhood bordering the Cape Town CBD, are calling on the City of Cape Town to regulate Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms, which they say are a threat to their community and heritage.

The Bo-Kaap Civic and Ratepayers Association (BKCRA) said in a statement that “the conversion of family homes into purely profit-driven tourist accommodation is rapidly eroding” the community cohesion. Bo-Kaap is “the ancestral home of Islam in South Africa” and “fundamentally a residential area”, the statement said.

GroundUp reported earlier this week that 70% of the inner-city’s residential units are being used for short-term rentals, according to the City’s new Local Spatial Development Framework for the inner-city. Bo-Kaap falls just outside of this area.

“For generations, families have lived in the same houses. Now, rising property prices and short-term rentals are displacing long-term residents, including the elderly,” said association chair and imam at a mosque in Bo-Kaap, Sheikh Dawood Terblanche.

Homes being converted into short-term rental units have been devastating and have “warped the property market, pricing out the families who have historically formed the backbone of the community”.

“The local community cannot compete with the returns generated by the tourist industry,” he said.

He said long-standing residents feel “estranged” from their own neighbourhood. And new residents and visitors “sometimes clash with the deep-rooted cultural practices, such as resistance to the Islamic call to prayer, which sounds five times a day, or the traditional Kaapse Klopse (Cape minstrels) celebrations”.

As families grow and as rents become higher, some residents are looking for lower-priced homes in Bo-Kaap to stay. Masturah Adams, a retired business strategist who runs a weekly soup kitchen in Bo-Kaap, says there is massive demand for affordable housing. “People have been on a waiting list for well over 30 years already. There has been no movement to make any land available for this. There are no affordable housing units readily available,” she said.

She says Airbnb clients do not always respect the community. “There are crazy parties and loud noise … They think you can get away with anything in Bo-Kaap.”

Faa-iekah Ryland, the BKCRA’s secretary, said the community is fed up. In 2019, she was arrested along with some of her family members and neighbours for protesting outside an Airbnb unit.

“We protested as neighbours but the manager of the place enticed the guests to say we had attacked them,” said Ryland. “The guests were from America and Brazil and they left the country so they never even appeared in court. It was all a ploy to drag us through the agony of court.”

She said it was a shame that young people who grew up in Bo-Kaap may one day not be able to afford to live in the area.

Calls for regulation

The BKCRA wants the City to more strictly enforce its zoning bylaws so that residential properties cannot be used for short-term rentals.

Short-term rental properties should be registered and licensed, and there should be quotas to restrict the number of units allowed to operate. And owners of these properties must reside there for most of the year, the BKCRA believes.

City of Cape Town spokesperson Luthando Tyhlibongo told GroundUp that the municipal rates policy does not allow for a property paying residential rates to be used primarily for commercial purposes.

“The City conducts ongoing proactive investigations into such violations and any suspected infringements can be reported for review,” said Tyhalibongo. He encouraged the public to report all land-use violations, which could result in penalties for property owners.

He said the City is building a mechanism to register units for short-term letting, and to ensure that commercial rates are applied to properties operating an accommodation business.

Under-utilised land in the area is being considered for affordable housing, he said.

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