Cape Town – Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane has ordered the City of Cape Town to halt its proposed sale to a private developer, the GOOD Party has revealed.
Commenting on the matter on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General, said the minister was responding to a matter they had raised.
“Simelane was responding to a letter from the GOOD Party questioning the lawfulness of the City’s proposed money-making activities funded by money specifically earmarked to improve the living conditions of poor people,” Herron stated.
He further stated that the “valuable piece of land” was bought nine years ago with funds meant to relieve severe congestion in Dunoon.
The 72-hectare tract of land in the Milnerton area, near Dunoon, cost nearly R185m nine years ago.
“It is now valued at about R256m – a tidy R71m profit for the City if the sale is allowed to go ahead,” Herron said.
“The City has developed zero homes on the land, and Dunoon remains among the most overcrowded neighbourhoods in Cape Town which has a housing backlog approaching half a million families.”
Herron said the City confirmed earlier this month, in response to an application for information by the GOOD Party under the Promotion of Access to Information Act, that it had acquired the land using Urban Settlements Development Grants.
Replying to the GOOD Party’s correspondence laying out the facts, Minister Simelane said the Ministry had previously engaged the City on its “disposal of housing-suitable public land”.
“In correspondence dated 1 February 2022, my predecessor requested the withdrawal of identified properties from auction and safeguards to protect equitable access to housing,” Minister Simelane wrote, as reported by Herron.
Minister Simelane reportedly also wrote: “Although Annandale Farm was not named in that correspondence, the matter would be considered in the context of these previously expressed concerns”.
Herron said Minister Simelane requested the City’s acquisition and funding records, together with an explanation of how the proposed development would secure housing benefits for poor households in Dunoon.
“I have also requested for an engagement with the City and for it to defer any award, conclusion of a binding sale agreement or transfer pending the Department’s assessment,” the Minister reportedy said.
In its July 2026 judgement in the so-called Tafelberg School land disposal matter, the Constitutional Court put strict rules in place to govern the State’s disposal of well-located public land.
The court ordered that before selling strategic public land, the City of Cape Town and/or Western Cape provincial government must actively demonstrate that affordable and social housing needs have been properly considered.
The court further ordered the prioritisation of spatial justice.
It said the state could not sell well-located public land to private buyers for commercial gain while ignoring housing shortages, as where people live is an integral part of the constitutional right to adequate housing under Section 26 of the Constitution.
“Now, imagine what the DA would say if it discovered that a municipality with a chronic housing shortage that it does not lead prioritised engaging in property speculation above its constitutional mandate to build houses – with funds specifically earmarked to build the houses,” noted Herron.
“Would they call it corruption or exceptional governance?”
