Latest news with #Hill-Lewis
TimesLIVE
19-07-2025
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
Hundreds bid farewell to ‘daughter of District Six' Theresa Solomon
Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis offered his condolences to Solomon's family and friends. He was a young boy when she served her term as mayor. Though he had never met her, Hill-Lewis said, many people spoke highly of her and she had shown courageous leadership as a mayor in a young democracy. 'I knew not only her professional history — her civic activism of the '70s and '80s, her involvement in the UDF, her entry into formal politics as an ANC candidate in 1994, her terms as deputy mayor and mayor of Cape Town and her diplomatic career afterwards — I also knew what people said about her, and how she was regarded in her community. 'This combination of principled toughness coupled with a motherly care and empathy made her a force for good in her community, and for the city of Cape Town. She led this city during a period when no-one had any certainty where our country was headed, and whether our democratic miracle would last. 'I think people forget how new and strange that time was for everyone in South Africa, and how challenging it must've been to steer a metro of this size and complexity through those waters,' Hill-Lewis said. A police parade was held after the service and the band played Abide By Me before the coffin was carried into the hearse. President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a special provincial category two funeral and instructed that the national flag fly at half-mast in the Western Cape on Saturday. After the service, Mbalula told the media that Solomon was a servant leader. 'She was an example of good governance and we are very proud of that,' he said.
The South African
18-07-2025
- Business
- The South African
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis slams Cape Town's wealthy property owners
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has launched a strong defence of the city's newly implemented municipal charge reforms, following a legal challenge by the South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA), which represents some of the country's wealthiest commercial real estate stakeholders. SAPOA has taken the City of Cape Town to the High Court, seeking a review of a key feature in the City's 2025/26 'Invested in Hope' budget: the decision to link fixed municipal service charges – such as for water and electricity infrastructure – to property value rather than applying flat rates across the board. Hill-Lewis has criticised SAPOA's position, stating that its objection to the new charge model is an attempt by large-scale property owners to avoid paying their fair share. 'They argue that the biggest property owners should pay the same as low-income families. That is simply regressive and patently unfair,' said Hill-Lewis. The mayor emphasised that the policy change was designed to protect lower-income households, particularly homes valued below R2.5 million, while ensuring that higher-value properties contribute more equitably to maintaining the city's public infrastructure. The city scrapped its old 'pipe levy' model, which based charges on the size of a property's water connection – a system Hill-Lewis said unfairly charged small homes and luxury mansions the same fixed fees. 'Our new model aligns charges with the value of the property, which is a more accurate reflection of a household's or business's ability to pay,' he said. The change supports Cape Town's planned R40 billion infrastructure investment over the next three years, which the city says is necessary to maintain and expand vital services across all communities. SAPOA argues that the policy is legally questionable and will place undue pressure on commercial property owners and investors. The association is seeking a court ruling to overturn the implementation of the value-based charge system. However, Hill-Lewis dismissed SAPOA's court bid as an attempt to 'go back to a system where ordinary families subsidise the wealthiest portfolio holders in the country.' The mayor also defended the principle of cross-subsidisation, stating that all residents – especially those with the financial means – have a responsibility to support equitable infrastructure development. 'Even households with solar panels or boreholes rely on the City's infrastructure in emergencies. Fixed infrastructure costs exist whether people consume services or not.' He explained that a flat charge, as SAPOA prefers, would disproportionately affect poorer households, taking up a much larger percentage of their income compared to wealthier residents. Hill-Lewis said the city had consulted with SAPOA and other stakeholders throughout the budgeting process. While SAPOA acknowledged the city's infrastructure needs, it failed to offer any workable alternative to the current approach. The city maintains that linking charges to property values is both legally sound and socially responsible, and plans to defend the policy in court. 'Cape Town must remain a city of hope,' Hill-Lewis concluded. 'To do that, everyone must contribute fairly to the systems that serve us all.' The High Court is expected to hear the matter in the coming weeks. If SAPOA succeeds, the ruling could set a precedent for how municipalities across South Africa structure their service charges in the future. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
IOL News
16-07-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
City spends R28 million on foreign national accommodation as eviction plans unfold
Foreign nationals inside Wingfield tent. Image: Ian Landsberg Documents citing the eviction of foreign nationals from Wingfield Tent in Kensington and Paint the City in Bellville have revealed that its upkeep has cost state organs, including the City and the Department of Home Affairs, R28 million in maintenance since its inception. In an affidavit by Cape Town mayor, Geordin Hill Lewis, revealed that it cost the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and other government departments over R400 000 per month for the running cost of Wingfield Tent and over R240 000 per month for Paint the City. In the court documents shared with Cape Argus, spreadsheets, including the eviction application, details of the foreign nationals' places of residency and other particulars were clarified. 'I attach hereto FA23' an excel spreadsheet. Demonstrating the total costs that have been incurred by the DHA to date. As appears therefrom an amount of approximately R28 m has been expended by the state in accommodating the respondents,' said Hill-Lewis via his affidavit. 'The City sourced, supplied and initially paid for the rental of the tent at the Wingfield site. This was done on an expedited and urgent basis during April 2020. 'The City thereafter received a negative audit finding by the Auditor General regarding its expenditure to its expenditure at Wingfield. The expenditure was objectionable for two reasons.. 'To date an amount of over R15 million has been expended by the DHA on the cost of Wingfield alone. The current monthly spend at Wingfield is at least R424 905.00.' He suggested that rental for the Wingfield tent was R356 500.00, mobile toilets R31 500 and generator and fuel cost 36 905.00. Hill-Lewis said in Paint the City, the rental of the tent was R221 829.90 per month and mobile toilets and cleaning cost R26 946 60. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ 'I am advised by the DHA that to date an amount of R7 million has been expended by the DHA on the costs of Paint City property and which amount continues to increase by at least R248 773.70 per month,' he stated The City in collaboration with the City, Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Dean Macpherson and Minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber made an eviction application for the occupants of the tents. According to the documents, respondents (the occupants), are to be evicted within 30 days of the court's order and if they do not vacate, the Sheriff and police will be authorized to remove them and any structures they occupy. The responding parties have fifteen days to file answering affidavits after notifying their intention to oppose and failure to respond will result in the application being granted without opposition on October 8. The documents further outline that Paint the City has 340 individuals whose gender distribution are predominantly male and female individuals, with nationalities primarily from Burundi, Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the site currently has 150 documented and 190 undocumented. Paint City measures approximately 29,000 m² and has a marquee tent of 960 m² while Wingfield measures 133,616 m² and has a marquee tent of 2,000 m² and both properties were initially used for emergency accommodation during the COVID-19 lockdown. The court document cites that the occupation has led to illegal taxi ranks and other unauthorised structures around the properties. Approximately 160 individuals occupy the Wingfield site, while around 200 are at Paint City and the living conditions are poor, with issues related to hygiene and safe. Earlier this month, the refugees said the plans to evict them were against their human rights and that they continued to live in squalor and that their tent was damaged, in what they believed was an attack. The DHA did not respond to Cape Argus queries. Get your news on the go, click here to join the Cape Argus News WhatsApp channel. Cape Argus
IOL News
07-07-2025
- Climate
- IOL News
We Are Drowning, Not Just in Water
Cape Town will once again set the stage for the iconic Cape Town International Jazz Festival (CTIJF) this month. Image: Unsplash Cape Town is drowning. Not just from winter's rains, but in the floodwaters of institutional neglect, infrastructural racism, and political indifference. As storm clouds settle over our city, they expose not only our weather vulnerabilities, but our moral ones too. Once again, it is the Cape Flats, the backyards, and the informal settlements that bear the brunt. While the Atlantic Seaboard lights flicker over cozy homes warmed by underfloor heating, families in Crossroads, Manneberg, Phillipi, Delft, and Khayelitsha huddle in wet blankets, their homes invaded by water, their dignity washed away by a cruel DA city council that has long stopped caring. And the City's response? A mop. A photo-op. A press statement. No structural plan. No investment surge. There is no emergency deployment of resources that matches the scale of crisis. It's just another rainy season for the poor. And another PR exercise for the DA. Winter Was Not a Surprise But the City Was Still Unprepared Let's be honest: winter in Cape Town is not a surprise. It comes every year. The rains, the flooding, the icy winds. The real shock is that the City of Cape Town, with all its power and budget, continues to be caught off guard. Every. Single. Time. Blocked stormwater manhole canals and retention tragically, the death of a child little Imthandé Swartbooi who fell into an uncovered manhole in Khayelitsha. The City was warned. The cover was reported missing. It was ignored. And a life was lost. This is not just a maintenance issue it is a governance failure. It is a failure rooted in racialised geography, historic exclusion, and present-day budgetary neglect. If It Were Camps Bay, Not Khayelitsha… Let us ask a simple question:If this flooding had affected Sea Point, Claremont, or Camps Bay would the City's response have been the same? Would Mayor Hill-Lewis have shown up with a mop and a shrug?Or would we have seen a multi-million rand emergency intervention plan? Remember when mountain footage. Helicopters. Fire engines. Private sector coordination. Corporate donations. Blankets in abundance. The truth is that the DA governs for the few and lets the rest fend for Cape Town is built for tourists, wine estates, tech startups, and gentrified warehouses. Our Cape Town the other Cape Town gets flooded homes, broken promises, and budget underspending. Budgets Hoarded, Not Spent Here's what makes this all worse:The City of Cape Town had the money to prevent this. According to the Auditor-General's 2023/24 municipal report, the City failed to spend over R1.3 billion of its capital budget, much of which was earmarked for housing, basic services, and infrastructure maintenance. Backyard dwellers 250,000 strong and growing continue to be ignored in formal planning. No or limited upgrades. No or limited in-situ support. Just rising service charges and no relief. The Catchment, Stormwater and River Management unit reportedly exhausted its maintenance budget before winter even began. This is not an accounting oversight. It is a damning indictment of poor planning, weak foresight, and misplaced priorities. What do you call a government that lets predictable disaster unfold, year after year, without intervention? I call it negligent. I call it elite-serving.I call it the DA-led City of Cape Town. The Human Toll: Our Pain is Normalised In Langa, we met a family who hadn't slept in days. Their mattress was soaked. Their walls leaking. Their children coughing. They had logged a call with the City three weeks ago. No or limited response. In Mitchell's Plain, we spoke to backyarders who had used old tyres and buckets to build makeshift trenches. In most areas, community activists are doing what the City should be doing clearing drains, documenting hotspots, coordinating relief and food. They don't have a budget. They just have heart. Baie Trammaksi to all the relief agencies. People are suffering and exhausted. We Need Structural Change, Not Sandbags Enough with the with the deflection and Town doesn't need another DA press need structural transformation in how our city is governed: 1. Immediate Emergency Flood Plan for the Cape Flats Declare township flooding a local disaster. Allocate more emergency funds for water extraction, temporary housing, and food relief. Deploy more infrastructure repair teams to Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Nyanga, Phillipi, and similar hotspots. 2. Drainage and Stormwater Masterplan Review Conduct an urgent and full audit of all stormwater infrastructure in the City's poorest wards. Prioritise cleaning, upgrading, and repairing of the most vulnerable systems. Invest in retention ponds, wetland buffers, and nature-based solutions. 3. Rethink Urban Spatial Injustice Accelerate housing delivery, especially for backyarders and informal settlements. Enforce transparency and accountability on unspent housing budgets. Ensure that basic services drainage, sanitation, electricity reach all communities, not just affluent ones. 4. People First Budgeting End the annual underspending on infrastructure. Involve community forums and ward committees in participatory budgeting processes. Tie City budgets to social impact, not technocratic outputs. A Call to Capetonians: It's Time to Wake Up To my fellow Capetonians, I ask you to look beyond the headlines beyond the aerial flood images. This is not a weather is a political is about who the City chooses to protect and who it chooses to abandon. If the mountain burns, the whole of Cape Town when the Cape Flats floods, we are told to 'be patient' and 'wait for Phase 3.' We deserve a city that works for all — not just for the deserve a government that doesn't wait for a child to die before it covers a deserve dignity in the sun and in the storm. We Cannot Mop Our Way Out of This Crisis Cape Town needs bold, progressive, people-centred just crisis management but just spin but just planning but performance. Let the rains wash away the the floods reveal the fault our collective suffering become a rallying cry for transformation. The people of Cape Town are not asking for are asking for most of all, for a city that sees all of us.
IOL News
27-06-2025
- Business
- IOL News
New by-law aims to loosen building regulations for 'micro housing developers'
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis Image: Supplied The City of Cape Town yesterday passed a major amendment to its Municipal Planning By-law, aimed at unlocking affordable rental housing in informal and lower-income neighbourhoods — a move Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis described as 'a watershed moment.' The amendment introduces a new land-use right that allows homeowners in 194 designated communities to legally build affordable rental units on their properties. These areas have seen rapid densification over the past decade, particularly through backyarder dwellings and informal structures. While the Democratic Alliance (DA), which holds a majority in Council, voted in support of the amendment, it faced opposition from several parties, including the EFF, Al Jama-ah, the National Coloured Congress (NCC), GOOD, Cape Exit, the PAC, and the Freedom Front Plus. The ANC abstained. In his address to Council, Hill-Lewis stressed the scale of the challenge: '1.2 million of our fellow residents live in informal structures in Cape Town,' he said. 'For those of us who did not grow up in townships, or in a backyard, it is hard to imagine what that means. To live with bitter cold and constant damp in winter, and scorching heat and constant threat of fire in summer.' Hill-Lewis criticised the national government's free housing programme, known as Breaking New Ground, for failing to meet rising demand. 'Budgets are simply too small, the need too vast. Only a lucky few thousand per year, those waiting the very longest, will get a totally free house, while hundreds of thousands remain on the list. It is important that the public understand that.' While acknowledging that economic growth and job creation remain the only sustainable long-term solution, Hill-Lewis emphasised the need for action now: 'We also can't wait for a faster growing economy. While that is undoubtedly the only sustainable long term solution, we also need a plan now.' That plan, he said, is the by-law amendment. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ 'The amendments to the Municipal Planning By-law that we will vote on today will do more than any other programme, in any city, to help many more people make the leap from informal housing to dignified, affordable homes.' The by-law now enables homeowners in selected communities to build rental units legally and safely, with connections to municipal water, sanitation, and electricity. These developments will also need to meet National Building Regulations. Hill-Lewis acknowledged that micro-developers in townships have already been meeting housing demand at a scale the State cannot match: 'The fact is that micro-developers in lower-income communities are already getting on with meeting housing demand by building many thousands more units every year than the State could ever possibly hope to deliver.' He described the City's role not as one of obstruction, but of enablement: 'Now we are playing our proper role – not standing in the way, but enabling this form of housing delivery, driven by people's own enterprise, ingenuity, and investment.' The by-law also includes support measures, such as: Pre-approved building plans and development charge discounts; A pipeline of 12,000 affordable housing units on well-located land; South Africa's first Land Discount Guidelines, allowing for discounted city-owned land to be used for social housing; Utility discounts for approved social housing projects. While praising the amendment's potential, Hill-Lewis also raised a broader point about transformation in the housing market: 'For so long, property development has been an industry dominated by wealthy established developers who mainly develop in expensive suburbs… but today we are also blowing open the property development industry for thousands of new entrants – new property developers in the townships and in so many other areas.' He also committed to streamlining approval processes and clamping down on unlawful construction. 'This amendment also empowers communities, by greatly improving public participation in planning applications, and giving the City real teeth for the first time to stop illegal building work.'
