Lebone Rodah Mosima
The GOOD party has accused Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis of using the language of redistribution to defend a tariff model it says will still burden working- and lower-middle-class homeowners.
A full bench of the Western Cape High Court last month found that the city’s fixed charges for city-wide cleaning, water and sanitation in its 2025/26 budget were unlawful and invalid.
GOOD said Hill-Lewis had warned that, without the city’s property-value-linked tariff structure, poorer residents could face higher charges.
The mayor has said that using property values to structure fixed charges was intended to protect lower- and middle-income households.
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“If Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis is serious about protecting lower-income households from higher tariffs, he must introduce a progressive tariff system that spares the struggling working and lower-middle classes and targets those who can really afford to pay,” the party said.
“Like other conservative politicians across the world, he is good at using progressive language, such as the language of redistribution, while at the same time defending the unequal status quo.”
The party said Cape Town remained one of the world’s most unequal cities, with some of South Africa’s highest property values and rental costs, while facing a housing backlog of more than 800,000.
GOOD also said the city’s short-term rental market had placed further pressure on residents struggling to buy or rent homes.
“It is estimated that 70% of apartments in the inner city of Cape Town are in the short-term rental pool,” the party said.
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The City’s draft 2026/27 tariff policy proposed a 100% rebate on the city-wide cleaning charge for formal residential properties valued from R1 to R620,000, with reduced rebates for higher property-value bands.
“The city’s proposed redistributive tariff exempted properties valued at less than R620 000 – the average price of a freestanding home in Mitchell’s Plain these days is R750 000 to R1.2 million,” GOOD said.
It said this meant many homeowners would still have been liable for fixed charges they could not afford.
The party said rising property values meant many Capetonians lived in homes they would not be able to buy at current prices and did not have spare cash to contribute to the mayor’s “misdirected and unlawful” redistribution model.
“Cape Town could learn from New York, where the Mayor is a former Capetonian,” the party said.
“New York property is the most expensive in the US and, like Cape Town, is a tourist mecca with a massive housing shortage.”
GOOD said New York had placed strict controls on short-term rentals to preserve housing for residents, while also targeting owners of high-value homes through additional taxation.
The party said that Hill-Lewis should not spread the tariff burden to households unable to pay more, but should instead target Cape Town’s wealthiest property owners, who fund his political party, the Democratic Alliance.
It said the city should also credit ratepayers for amounts already paid under tariffs declared unlawful, although the court order set the charges aside from 30 June and did not expressly order refunds or credits.
“At the same time, to show good faith the City must credit ratepayers’ bills with the tariffs they paid that have been deemed unlawful,” the party said.
GOOD said the City had until Friday to decide whether to appeal the full-bench judgment.
