The deputy mayor of Cape Town refused to meet housing activists who occupied a Cape Town golf course yesterday. Reclaim the City protesters demanded the presence of Ian Neilson at Rondebosch Golf Club, but he reportedly told TimesLIVE he would not respond to threats.

The club featured prominently this week in a document from another NGO, Ndifuna Ukwazi, which said it was a prime example of the way the City of Cape Town made inefficient use of land suitable for affordable housing. The club pays R1 000 a year to rent 45ha between the M5 and the Black River, and its 25-year lease expires in 2020.

Neilson said: ‘We do not accept their actions as acceptable to the rules of engagement. In any case, their entire campaign is misplaced. The limiting factor in the provision of housing is not land, but funds for development.’

The deputy mayor said more than 1 000ha was earmarked for homes in Cape Town.

‘When the national government (the constitutional authority for providing housing) provides the city and the province with adequate funds, that land will be developed.’

International holidaymakers were among golfers who had to abandon their rounds when Reclaim the City activists, numbering between 150 and 400 entered the course to stage their protest.

Full TimesLIVE report

Reclaim the City spokesperson Zacharia Mashele said national, provincial and local government had failed to redistribute land.

Noting Rondebosch Golf Course is as big as 45 soccer fields and could house thousands of families, he called on the city to commit to ending leases on the golf course and all other well-located public land.

‘This must be redistributed for affordable housing for poor and working-class people. If the City of Cape Town refuses to meet its obligations, then the province or national government must expropriate the land for affordable housing', he is quoted as saying in a News24 report.

A GroundUp report notes the golf club's lease with the city was contained in a new report on city-owned land by civil society organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi. According to GroundUp, the report states that some of the best land in the city was being used as a ‘dog play park’ for the @frits Pet Hotel and Daycare Centre, described as the largest of its kind in the world.

The report, City Leases: Cape Town's Failure to Redistribute Land, proposes a ‘radical new deal’ for housing on 24 areas of city-owned land, including golf courses, bowling greens, country clubs, and parking lots. These range across the breadth of the City, from Camps Bay to Strand to Fish Hoek.

Full News24 report

Full GroundUp report