The following speech was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament Brett Herron during today’s interpellation debate on Affordable Housing:
This government is acting less like a serious administration and more like Hollywood in a creativity crisis. Instead of producing bold, new projects, we just get endless reboots of the same tired story.
This very same piece of land, Founders Garden, was announced for development in 2010 as part of the Cape Town Central City Regeneration Programme. Then it was re-announced in 2016 for social housing. And again in 2019, Cabinet approved its release. Now here we are in 2025, and suddenly we’re expected to stand, clap, and act like this is a blockbuster premiere. Why, after years of fanfare, photo-ops and recycled announcements, has there been no concrete progress on delivering homes for the people who need them?
The latest “reboot” promises 1,476 social housing units for households earning less than R22,000 a month, with capped rentals. That sounds good on paper, but these same numbers have been floating around for years.
Cape Town has one of the worst housing backlogs in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people are on a waiting list that moves slower than this project has moved in 15 years. In fact, the current count is roughly 688,824, so these social housing units barely make a dent in that deficit.
The public doesn’t need another staged press event. They need construction cranes, bricks, and roofs over their heads. This isn’t just about one piece of land. This is about a pattern, a pattern of delay, of smoke and mirrors, of government failure. Every time the people demand housing, they get another announcement.
Every time they demand dignity, they get another speech. And every time they demand action, they get another photo-op. So I ask again: are we going to see all the projects from the Central City Regeneration Programme paraded out every few years like lame Hollywood remakes? Or will this government finally stop selling posters and actually make the film?
Because we already have the Provincial Office Precinct remake a.k.a. Leeuloop, now we are just waiting on the rest. Because, Honourable Speaker, after 15 years of talk, the time for trailers is over. It is time to deliver the movie.
This land could change lives, land in the very heart of the city, yet it is left idle while working-class families are pushed further to the edges. And it’s not just Founders Garden. It’s Tafelberg, Dorp Street, Government Garage, Pickwick St, Salt River Market, Pine Road, Newmarket St. And, just today the Mayor of Cape Town reannounced the release of the Roeland Street Fruit & Veg site – it was announced in 2017, and again by the City and Province, in a ceremony on the site, in February 2022, and now again today.
The list goes on.
Tafelberg’s first feasibility study was conducted in 2011. And yet I attended another meeting, two weeks ago, about developing affordable housing on the site.
Fourteen years later and you’re still talking while we’re still fighting. No bricks have been laid. And fighting costs money, time and the livelihoods of people. Every delay comes at a direct human cost. Behind each statistic is a child who grows up believing that the city they live in has no place for them.
Behind each delay is a grandmother who has been on that waiting list for 60 years and dies waiting for a home she was promised. Behind each broken commitment is a government that seems more concerned with announcements than with delivery.
The people we’re talking about here are the backbone of our society, the nurses, teachers, cleaners, police officers, and service workers who keep this city functioning.
They are not asking for charity. They are asking for fair access to safe, affordable homes close to where they work, study, and live. Every year of delay is another year of displacement. Another year where children spend hours commuting instead of learning. Another year where single mothers pay most of their income on transport because they cannot afford to live near their jobs. Another year where our economy bleeds because workers are exhausted before they even start their shifts.
Speaker, if we cannot prioritise housing for the most vulnerable, then what exactly are we doing here?
The Founders Garden site could have been a model for spatial justice in Cape Town.
Instead, it has become a case study in political procrastination. It’s time this government stopped hiding behind press statements and ceremonial launches.
Stop treating social housing like a campaign prop and start treating it like the human right that it is. And if this government cannot deliver on its own promises, then it must make way for those who will.
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