Update on Spatial Development in Cape Town

Last year we covered the spatial planning proposals affecting both the Deep South and the Blouberg areas of Cape Town.

In both cases, the LSDFs contained a number of questionable elements, including a confession by a prominent councillor that the document (Masi LSDF) was prepared by people “without experience of area.”

This prompted righteous concern from thousands of Cape Town residents.

Since then, people have been asking: where are we now?

To address spatial planning in Cape Town, the City of Cape Town launched the Spatial Planning Collective in mid-2025. The initiative consists of community engagement forums established by the City’s Urban Planning and Design Department across all 20 Subcouncils.

The Spatial Planning Collective involves workshops; one was held on 24 January 2026, and beforehand those attending were sent a presentation.

That presentation makes it clear that the City intends to pursue building a compact city, or, to use the Mayors words from 2024 “the city must densify.”

I contacted the City by email regarding its plan to densify Cape Town, but have not yet received a response.

What is clear is that the current Hill-Lewis administration wants to move toward densification, emphasising well-located housing, rental-focused multi-unit development, and planning tools such as nodes, and mixed-use areas to enable a compact city model.

What remains to be seen is how, when and where. The City says it wants to involve the Collectives in this stage of the process.

But the sad, stark reality is that…

This is exactly what leaders in Johannesburg pushed in the 1990s, which ultimately contributed to the region’s broader collapse in road, water and electricity infrastructure as well as a rise in crime.

Joburg’s densification

In the early 1990s, urban planners, civic bodies, and policy thinkers in Johannesburg began to articulate a new spatial vision.

The goal was to move away from sprawling form and instead build a compact, integrated city. Planning proposals promoted densification, mixed-use development, and the linking of areas through transport corridors.

While the vision of building a compact city was ambitious, it belonged more to dreamland than to the real world. Utopian in nature, its implementation led to the deterioration of Johannesburg’s inner city, a decline that has since spilled into surrounding suburbs.

If Cape Town’s leadership persists with the unrealistic plan for a compact city, it will fail as Johannesburg did. The city will develop multiple high-density centres that will eventually bottom out, creating a donut effect, spreading outward, ultimately overwhelming Cape Town’s roads, water, and electricity infrastructure.

Picture of the decay in Joburg

What then can the ordinary person do?

Residents of Cape Town must move forward with a two-pronged approach:

1. Establish independent oversight committees in local areas to act decisively in the interests of your family and neighbours, focusing on green spaces, business, security, education, media and resources.
2. Use your vote wisely.

Another picture of the decay in Joburg