GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & City of Cape Town Mayoral Candidate
24 September 2026
The City of Cape Town has confirmed in response to an application under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) that it used special funds earmarked to build homes for poor people to pay for a piece of land in Milnerton which it is now selling for a R71m profit to a private developer.
The land was paid for with Urban Settlement Development Grant money, with the specific purpose of alleviating over-crowding in Dunoon.
USDG grants are not general-purpose funds for municipalities to use at their discretion. According to National Treasury’s grant framework, the purpose of USDG funding is to supplement municipal budgets “in order to support the national human settlements development programme, focusing on poor households”.
Stated objectives of the grant include “increased acquisition and availability of well-located land for human settlements development” and “increased access of poor households to public and socio-economic amenities”.
The GOOD Party will direct correspondence to the National Department of Human Settlements to inquire about the lawfulness of the City using USDG funding to buy and sell property, for profit.
No houses in sight
Nine years ago, while serving as Cape Town’s Mayco Member for Transport and Urban Development, I publicly announced the acquisition of the 71.8h Annandale Farm in order to reduce pressure on Dunoon. This week, the City confirmed in response to my PAIA application, that the origin of the R162,636,558 (ex VAT) paid for the land was USDG grants. It further confirmed that the acquisition was recorded against a specific City project code tied directly to the property.
I submitted the PAIA application following the City’s shamefully manipulative and untruthful announcement last month that it had released the site in Milnerton “to deliver more affordable housing”. The land sale contains a weak and unbinding reference to affordable housing. The truth is that many more Dunoon residents would have benefitted from the land had the City developed social and affordable housing on the land than will benefit – if any ever do – from a private development.
This is yet another example of the City’s use of clever-clever statements to appear to be taking its commitments to address Cape Town’s housing crisis seriously, while abjectly failing to reduce the ever-growing need, address rampant unaffordability, or deviate from the apartheid spatial plan.
The cold fact is that nine years after money was spent for purposes of “increased access of poor households to public and socio-economic amenities” none of it has gone toward housing Dunoon’s poorest and overcrowded residents. Zero houses have been built – but, hey, the City’s turning a fat profit.
When the City reports to the Constitutional Court on its housing progress and plans in the next week, as ordered in the court’s Tafelberg School judgement, the judges are unlikely to agree that announcements on “land releases” amount to any progress at all.
City damage control (sigh!)
The City refused my request (included in the PAIA application) to see the original approval report which served before the Executive Mayor and Mayoral Committee at the time of the Annandale Farm acquisition. This document is apparently confidential, as is the original valuation report.
There is no good reason a report motivating a public land purchase for Dunoon’s housing relief should still be hidden from the very community it was meant to benefit. The only reason I can think of is that information contained in these reports will further expose the DA’s hypocrisy.
I have lodged a formal appeal against the City’s decision to keep compromising documents secret.
Moral bankruptcy
Annadale Farm was bought for Dunoon. It should never have been put up for private sale.
Cape Town has turned a commitment to the poor into a private property deal – banking the land, watching its value climb by tens of millions of rand, and now selling it off – while Dunoon still seethes.
The City’s selling spree of public land must be stopped. The Constitutional Court, again, in the Tafelberg case, made clear that the City’s first obligation before flogging publicly owned properties, is to test whether public land can be used to address the duty to provide well located public housing. We believe that the sale of this land falls foul of the constitutional principle established by that judgment.
All pending property sales should be stopped and re-examined… No public property that could be used to serve a public purpose should be sold. It is my pledge, as Mayoral Candidate for the City of Cape Town, to stop all sales of public land from day one.
Media Enquiries: media@forgood.org.za