On the 2

nd

of July 2026, the Constitutional Court handed down an unanimous judgement that will reshape how we understand the right to housing in South Africa.

The Tafelberg judgment (

Adonisi v Minister for Transport and Public Works, Western Cape; Minister of Human Settlements v Minister for Transport and Public Works, Western Cape

[2026] ZACC 29 (2 July 2026)

) declared the 2015 sale of the Tafelberg property at 353 Main Road, Sea Point, Cape Town, unlawful.

This ruling highlighted the failure by the Western Cape government and City of Cape Town to fulfil their constitutional duties to redress spatial injustice by providing affordable housing in well-located areas. This battle was championed by urban land movement,

Reclaim the City

, with support from NGO,

Ndifuna Ukwazi

. In a celebrated outcome, both levels of government were ordered to submit detailed reports to the high court within three months (2 October 2026).

But as we celebrate this victory, we must confront the sobering truth. This was only one of the City’s many failures. The same week the Constitutional Court affirmed the importance of spatial justice, the Public Protector released a devastating report on the City’s failure to provide basic municipal services to Langa Flats in Langa and in the township of Khayelitsha. The contrast could not be clearer. While the city and provincial governments fought for a decade to sell off prime public land in Sea Point, residents in Langa and Khayelitsha have been living without functioning sewers, fire safety equipment, clean water, and without the dignity that the constitution promises them.

Two cities, one constitution

The Public Protector’s report,

Systemic Investigation into Alleged Failure by the City of Cape Town to Provide Basic Municipal Services in Langa Flats and Khayelitsha Township

, reads like an indictment of a city that has forgotten half its residents.

In Langa Flats, sewer infrastructure has been in a state of disrepair for 14 years. Firehose reels and extinguishers that were promised to be repaired in March 2022 are still broken.

Residents have been forced to contribute R100 per household to hire cleaners for communal areas, a responsibility that rightfully belongs to the municipality. Housing units have cracked walls that, despite repeated commitments, are years later still to be assessed.

According to the report by the Public Protector, Town Two Clinic does not have smoke detectors or CCTV cameras. Earlier this year, the security company at the clinic fell victim to extortion rackets that are ravaging the community.

In Khayelitsha, the picture is no better. At SST-Marikana, residents who were relocated by the City to make way for sewer repairs were moved to a site without access to electricity or adequate water.

In multiple inspections of the area, the Public Protector found none of the 143 water taps that the City claimed to have provided. Relocated families relied on a self-connected communal tap – a pipe pressed down with a cement block, providing only a trickle of water.

An elderly wheelchair-bound resident was left alone without accessible water or electricity, in conditions “neither safe nor conducive to his health and wellbeing”.

At the

Matthew Goniwe

and

Town Two

clinics, there were no smoke detectors, and no functional CCTV cameras, with paper records stored in rooms without fire detection. Staff at

Matthew Goniwe

reported that the clinic could go without electricity for two to three weeks at a time. This is not a failure of resources alone, but a failure of

priorities

.

The spatial logic of neglect

What connects Tafelberg to Langa and Khayelitsha is not just geography but a spatial logic that has persisted since Apartheid. Well-located land in Sea Point is fiercely protected for the wealthy, while poor and working-class communities are pushed to the urban periphery and are neglected there – out of sight, out of mind!

The Constitutional Court’s Tafelberg judgment recognised this explicitly. Justice Mhlantla, in her judgment, said that the location of housing must be treated as a “relevant factor” in decisions about public land, particularly where such decisions affect efforts to redress apartheid spatial injustice.

But spatial justice is not only about where housing is built, it is also about how communities are