The City of Cape Town is aiming to forge strong public-private partnerships for more affordable housing, with a land release pipeline now totalling over 14 000 affordable units worth an estimated R26bn in private sector development capital. The City brought together private sector developers, financiers, government, and international finance bodies for a groundbreaking Affordable Housing Investment Connect conference in Century City on 17 August 2026. Read more below:
In his address to the conference, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the City has released more land for affordable housing in the current term than the decade prior under its Priority Programme to accelerate land release.
Land parcels with a yield of over 14 000 affordable units are currently in the active land release pipeline or project packaging stage. A further 7 000-unit yield is estimated across land parcels already awarded to developers, while over 6 000 completed social housing units are already in operation in Cape Town.
Councillor Carl Pophaim, Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements said the City had released land valued at R1,7bn in just the last two years.
‘We’ve released land with an estimated yield of 13 766 opportunities over the past two years.
‘Over this period, the City also enabled more than R960 million in discounted release, bulk infrastructure investment, and incentives to enhance the viability of projects.
‘If this is what we’ve been able to do in just over two years, imagine what we will achieve as our programme matures.
‘Our unique land release for affordable housing programme is essentially a neighbourhood socio-economic investment programme. This programme unlocks economic growth, and improved infrastructure, services, and amenities in existing neighbourhoods, while also enabling greater access to dignified, well-located accommodation for more Capetonians,’ said Councillor Pophaim.
As part of Cape Town’s strategic shift to enable much more affordable housing, the City has:
- passed land discount guidelines to make developments viable,
- discounted monthly utility bills for tenants,
- worked with developers to enable mixed-use developments that cross-subsidise affordable rental apartments
- expanded the target threshold to deliver affordable housing for households earning up to R34 800
- passed a major Municipal Planning By-law amendment and created an incentive fund to make it easier for micro-developers to build small-scale affordable units in areas of highest demand
The City is further calling for national grant-funding to be increased dramatically, and for it to be directly allocated to the metro, rather than via the red tape-laden Social Housing Regulatory Authority (SHRA).
Some key Cape Town housing information and trends
- Covid-19 enabled people to move around causing high semigration.
- Cape Town’s housing market demand is being driven by two broad forces: people seeking employment opportunities due to the higher employment rate in Cape Town and confidence in good governance driving investment in Cape Town properties as a financial asset.
- With Cape Town’s population expected to grow to 8,4 million people over 24 years, 70% of the housing demand (ownership and rental) will be in the affordable housing bracket.
- Between now and 2050 more than one million housing units are required to meet the demand
- There has been an increasing switch from freehold to sectional title developments – now making up more than 50% of total property sales.
The affordable housing bracket looks at property value of up to R1,5 million for ownership and a household income of between R3 500 and R34 800 per month in the rental space.
Source: City of Cape Town
