Location is not a luxury: SA Constitutional Court rewrites the rules on housing and spatial justice

On 2 July 2026, South Africa’s Constitutional Court affirmed the fundamental importance of location as an aspect of adequate housing, cementing the constitutional imperative to redress spatial apartheid in the landmark judgment of Adonisi and Others v Minister for Transport and Public Works.

The case centred on the Western Cape Province’s disposal of the Tafelberg property in Sea Point, Cape Town, which had stood empty for some time despite significant public and institutional interest in utilising the site for social housing. The Province resolved in March 2015 to sell it.

In a unanimous judgment penned by Justice Mhlantla, the court held that both the City of Cape Town and the Province had failed in their obligations to realise the right of access to adequate housing, a right that includes suitably located and affordable housing.

Central to the analysis was the court’s understanding of housing as something “more than brick and mortar”, intimately connected to the realisation of socio-economic and political rights. The court emphasised that well-located housing is not a “nice to have” but a necessary feature of any constitutionally compliant housing programme, drawing on its earlier Commando judgment of December 2024.

The court granted a supervisory order requiring the Province and the City to submit a report to the Western Cape High Court within three months of the judgment, detailing policies and programmes for the provision of affordable housing in the CBD and other well-located areas.

As Justice Mhlantla warned, “without deliberate and sustained restorative State action, spatial inequality is likely to deepen rather than diminish over time.” The analysis was written by Michael Evans, Thomas Karberg and Lula Grant of Webber Wentzel.