Judgment in the case of the controversial sale of a piece of prime property in Sea Point, Cape Town, has been reserved until the second quarter of the year.

On Friday, the Western Cape High Court heard the Western Cape Government and City of Cape Town's application for leave to appeal the Tafelberg property judgment, which was delivered last year.

Judges Patrick Gamble and Monde Samela presided over the matter virtually and sat for several hours listening to arguments, notes a News24 report.

Counsel for the provincial government, Advocate Eduard Fagan, told the court the judgment has many implications and should be ripe for an appeal.

‘The judgment imposes constraints on the province's ability to raise revenue by selling off land and the SCA should look into it.’

He said there is no duty to provide housing in a specific area, namely in the CBD of Cape Town.

Acting for the City of Cape Town, Advocate Nazreen Bawa told the court the city does not have a legal obligation to address spatial apartheid by providing social housing in central Cape Town.

‘The court didn't take account (of) what the city is doing to address spatial inequality in other parts of the city. Ideally you would want social housing in central Cape Town, but there is no legal obligation to provide a specific type of housing in this area.’

The Western Cape government took the court's decision on appeal last year on the basis that the judgment amounted to ‘judicial over-reach’.

A ruling last year found the city and the province had failed in their constitutional mandate to address apartheid spatial planning by selling the site to the Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School for R135m.

The property has been returned to the provincial government.

Full News24 report