We all know what happens in cities that let Airbnb run wild: ordinary residents get pushed out, rents and property prices shoot through the roof, and whole neighbourhoods turn into revolving-door tourist zones. You only have to look overseas to see the same pattern.
But here in Cape Town we’re doing it worse than most. We have basically zero proper rules for short-term letting. No licensing system worth speaking of, no extra taxes for people running Airbnb as a business, and no fair way to make them pay their share.
Meanwhile, hotels get hammered with every possible charge – tourism levies, commercial rates, higher water and electricity tariffs, fire safety compliance, you name it. Airbnb operators? They pay almost nothing extra, even though they’re selling the exact same thing: a bed for the night in Cape Town.
That unfair advantage is a big part of why property on the Atlantic Seaboard has become insane. Investors buy up flats, kick out long-term tenants (or never offer long-term leases in the first place), and flip the place into a mini-hotel for higher returns. Developers see the game and build tiny “investor units” that only make sense as Airbnbs, not as homes for actual Capetonians.
Here’s the crazy part: thousands of these places are full-blown businesses – managed by agencies, advertised 365 days a year, cleaned by staff – yet the City still bills them as if granny is just renting out her spare room now and then. If the City put together a small team to find and reclassify these commercial operations, they could bring in millions in extra rates without hitting normal homeowners with yet another levy or “cleaning charge”.
The people losing out aren’t just the poorest. Teachers, nurses, young accountants, graphic designers – people who are doing everything right, climbing the ladder, earning more than their parents ever did – still can’t buy or even rent in Sea Point, Bantry Bay or Clifton anymore. These were mixed, lively neighbourhoods not that long ago. Now they’re becoming playgrounds for people who fly in for a week and fly out again, or for investors who don’t even live here.
If nothing changes, a 30-year-old Capetonian who’s killing it at work will only ever live on the Atlantic Seaboard if their parents are loaded. That’s not progress. That’s a city slowly locking its own people out.
Copyright Jaques Weber
