Hill-Lewis vows to cut Cape Town building red tape as housing dominates election day
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Cape Town mayor and DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis says easing development rules and releasing more city-owned land are the only sustainable routes to more affordable housing, speaking after casting his vote in the local elections.
Cape Town mayor and Democratic Alliance leader Geordin Hill-Lewis has promised to keep cutting the regulations he says are blocking affordable housing and to release more city-owned land for affordable accommodation.
Speaking after casting his vote at Edgemead Primary School on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, Hill-Lewis said there is only one sustainable solution to getting more affordable accommodation onto the market: making it easier to build. "You cannot both be in favour of more affordable housing and opposed to building more things. Those two are mutually exclusive positions," he said. "So we have to ease the red tape strangulation on new supply."
He said his administration had released more city-owned land in the past term than ever before in Cape Town and that projects which had been stuck for years, including in Salt River, are now under construction. He promised to keep "attacking every piece of unnecessary red tape relentlessly" until it is easier to provide affordable accommodation in the city.
The shortage of affordable housing has become a wedge issue in the local elections as the cost of living presses on working and middle-class households. The DA has been criticised over the issue by opposition parties, the Constitutional Court and the South African Human Rights Commission in the run-up to voting day.