Herron Pledges Moratorium on Sale of Cape Town's Public Land

GOOD Party mayoral candidate Brett Herron has vowed to stop the sale of City-owned land from his first day in office if elected mayor of Cape Town, arguing that public land should first be used to tackle the housing crisis.

Launching the party's Cape Town election manifesto in Athlone on Saturday, 19 September 2026, Herron said the flagship Day One action would be a city-wide moratorium on the sale of all public land and on long leases of over ten years, describing it as a pause with a published end condition rather than a permanent freeze.

Under the plan, City-owned properties would undergo an independent land and property audit before any sale or long-term lease, with each site assessed against Cape Town's housing backlog and the need for community facilities before council decides its future. Where attempts to attract private development have failed, GOOD wants the City to build housing itself, noting that six of the last seven parcels released for affordable housing received no responsive bids.

The manifesto also proposes upgrading informal settlements in place with greater security of tenure, requiring private developers to contribute affordable housing in exchange for additional development rights, converting apartheid-era migrant labour hostels into family homes, and halting City-initiated evictions from council rental stock.

The City of Cape Town has said its land-release pipeline had grown to more than 14,000 affordable housing units, representing an estimated R26 billion in private-sector development capital, describing the properties as being in its active land-release pipeline or project-packaging stage rather than completed housing. Annandale is among the City-owned sites earmarked for housing, with City documents listing a potential yield of 2,500 units.