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Displaying the 30 latest comments.
Submitted | first-name | support | concern | top-concern | message |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2026-08-11 18:30:22 +02:00 | Dom | No I do not | Revenue Generation vs. Solving the Inner-City Housing Squeeze | What benefit does the guest house gain from this extra tax? Will This allow extra parking, relaxing of some planning restrictions etc? Commercial rates should include commercial benefits. Owners are already paying sars on their income. Guest houses provide huge income and employment in CPT.. why mess with a good business. How much accommodation will this free up.. very very little. People move to CPT because it’s got opportunities. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.. | |
2026-08-11 18:21:23 +02:00 | T | No I do not | All of the above | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | |
2026-08-11 18:20:09 +02:00 | Misha | No I do not | All of the above | Administrative Complexity, Backdated Rates & De-Registration Red Tape | |
2026-08-11 17:32:43 +02:00 | Wayne | Yes I do | Revenue Generation vs. Solving the Inner-City Housing Squeeze | ||
2026-08-11 17:32:15 +02:00 | Bianca | Not fully | All of the above | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | Whilst we welcome the registry with the municipality witha certified number and the move to legitimise rentals and clamp down on fake listings and scams, we believe the rate increases being implemented in Cape Town are outrageous. 135%! That is far too high. On top of that, calling it a “legitimate tax” is misleading when on open days, that generate absolutely no income, there is no real basis for charging this tax at all. We feel this is effectively lunacy, a scam, and an unfair system that penalises people who can’t afford the burden of being taxed on a listed rate that might not materialise with actual money in their pocket. |
2026-08-11 17:31:27 +02:00 | Jason | No I do not | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | I oppose the proposed reclassification of short-term rentals as commercial properties. Many providers are small operators, not large hotel chains. The proposed increase, reportedly up to 50% higher than residential rates, would undermine small businesses, deter tourism, and risk job losses in a vital part of the local economy. We ask the city to reconsider and adopt a more proportionate approach that recognizes the role of short-term rentals in supporting tourism, in supporting small business owners, and sustainable growth. As a local property management business, we see firsthand how short-term rentals sustain not just homeowners, but an entire ecosystem of cleaners, gardeners, and contractors, while also driving guest spending across local restaurants, shops, and attractions. Reclassifying these homes as commercial premises would ripple through the wider tourism economy. We urge the city to reconsider and work with stakeholders on a balanced solution. | |
2026-08-11 17:17:48 +02:00 | Madniah | No I do not | All of the above | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | |
2026-08-11 17:09:30 +02:00 | Melissa | No I do not | All of the above | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | |
2026-08-11 16:23:37 +02:00 | Wendy | No I do not | All of the above | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | |
2026-08-11 15:34:53 +02:00 | Madira | No I do not | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | ||
2026-08-11 15:18:47 +02:00 | Lynne | No I do not | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | Flawed “Availability” Test: Taxing hosts based on open calendar days rather than actual income penalises owners whose properties sit empty off-peak. An empty flat listed online earns zero revenue yet gets hit with a commercial tax penalty. Punishing Household Survival: Middle-class families, retirees, and single-property owners rely on seasonal holiday letting to cover skyrocketing bond rates, electricity tariffs, and living costs. Inflated Prices for Guests & Tourists: Reclassifying rentals onto commercial rates increases operational costs by up to 135%. Hosts will pass these costs onto guests, making Cape Town less affordable for domestic South African families. Draconian Sanctions & POPIA Risks: Threatening property owners and tech platforms with 6 months in prison over administrative registration numbers is excessive. Automated data-sharing between global platforms and municipal databases raises personal privacy concerns under POPIA | |
2026-08-11 15:14:36 +02:00 | Mark | No I do not | All of the above | Consumer Impact: Higher Nightly Accommodation Rates & Reduced Choice | Why does this supposed best run city keep on pushing to become more socialist by the day. Just stop. You are going to be voted out come November. |
2026-08-11 15:09:39 +02:00 | Andy | No I do not | All of the above | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | |
2026-08-11 14:41:24 +02:00 | Suki | Not fully | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | ||
2026-08-11 14:25:45 +02:00 | Darren | No I do not | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | ||
2026-08-11 13:55:57 +02:00 | Paul | No I do not | Other | Each of the listed objections is valid in its own right. The time has, however, come to reign in this DA government's free-for-all administrative overreach and excessive taxing of rate payers, while actively working to destroy Cape Town as a residential and commercial safe haven. The DA, nor any other political party must be allowed to run rough-shot over the rate paying residents of Cape Town. | |
2026-08-11 13:34:34 +02:00 | Nkateko | No I do not | All of the above | Consumer Impact: Higher Nightly Accommodation Rates & Reduced Choice | |
2026-08-11 13:14:38 +02:00 | Elke | No I do not | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | I’m so sick and tired of being taxed, because this is a tax. Sick of regulations just opening more avenues for misuse. Fraud and corruption | |
2026-08-11 12:18:18 +02:00 | Annelie | No I do not | All of the above | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | |
2026-08-11 10:20:10 +02:00 | Tamsin | No I do not | All of the above | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | Most short term rentals rely on the visitors during season and we can get booked up from November through to March. This means that if our rates are increased 2.5x what they currently are, the income we make over summer will be purely to carry our property costs through winter. There is no feasible way that any short term rental listing will survive this rates increase. So either thousands of families will lose their primary source of income and along with that their staff, or the city needs to find a different way to make their money. Many STR businesses are not going to switch to the LTR business model as the risks of protected tenant rights in South Africa are far too great. Most of the STR businesses will simply close down. This will not solve the housing shortage problem in the city. If the government changed the laws on tenants that default, the problem would be solved, as many of us would prefer the regular reliable income from long term rentals, but are too worried about the risks associated with bad tenants and inability to get them out of our valuable assets while they are not paying rental. The city should charge a tourist tax at the airport on every arrival, like Zanzibar. Millions of tourist enter every year and pay around $50 per person. That is a substantial increase in revenu without destroying families and business around Cape Town. This approach is not sustainable and will have a serious impact on many peoples livelihood. |
2026-08-11 09:07:08 +02:00 | Angela | Not fully | Data Privacy Risks, POPIA Compliance & Mandatory Platform Sharing | It is an invasion of privacy. What people do in their OWN homes has got nothing to do with council as long as they pay their rates. People hosting relatives or friends in their own homes again should be private not council business? This ruling should only apply to people who own more than one apartment and let them out regularly on short term lets. Those are the people abusing our monetary exchange rate and benefitting from short term letting? | |
2026-08-11 08:56:55 +02:00 | Jo | Not fully | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | I support the City’s objective of ensuring that genuinely commercial short-term accommodation is appropriately regulated and contributes fairly to municipal revenue. However, I have serious concerns about using listing availability rather than actual occupancy/booked nights as the basis for determining whether a property is treated as commercial. There is a fundamental financial difference between a property being available to be booked and a property actually generating short-term rental income. A host can make a property available for 365 days, yet only receive bookings for a fraction of those nights. Applying a commercial classification or tariff based on availability effectively treats potential economic activity as actual economic activity. This is particularly problematic because availability is not a guaranteed commitment to rent. Hosts may block dates for personal use, maintenance, owner stays, renovations, seasonal adjustments, or simply because anticipated demand does not materialise. A night appearing as “available” on a booking platform does not mean that the property was commercially utilised on that night. The City itself intends to obtain both availability and occupancy data from booking platforms. If actual occupancy data is available, it raises an important question: why should the regulatory or rates threshold be determined primarily by availability rather than actual commercial use? The financial consequences are not insignificant. Current Cape Town short-term rental data indicates average occupancy of approximately 61% of available nights. This demonstrates that availability and actual utilisation can differ substantially. From a fairness and proportionality perspective, a property that is occupied by paying short-term guests for 100 nights should not necessarily be treated in the same way as a property generating short-term rental income for 250 or 300 nights simply because both were technically available for bookings for more than 50% of the year. If the purpose of the policy is to identify properties being operated as commercial accommodation, then the most defensible measure should be actual commercial activity, supported by verifiable booking/occupancy data. I would therefore strongly urge the City to reconsider the proposed methodology and clearly distinguish between: • nights listed as available; • nights actually booked and occupied; and • nights blocked by the owner or for legitimate non-commercial reasons. At the very least, there should be a transparent mechanism allowing owners to demonstrate actual occupancy and challenge a commercial classification based solely on platform availability. Regulation should target actual commercial use, not merely the possibility of commercial use. Otherwise, property owners could face substantially higher rates based on income they never earned. The principle should be simple: taxation and municipal charges should reflect actual economic activity, not hypothetical utilisation. | |
2026-08-11 08:48:07 +02:00 | Roxanne | Not fully | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | ||
2026-08-11 08:39:23 +02:00 | Natalie | Not fully | Consumer Impact: Higher Nightly Accommodation Rates & Reduced Choice | Everyone gets affected by this, don't penalise the people trying to run businesses! It's also hard enough trying to find budget accommodation for locals, this just makes it worse for localsand easier for foreigners | |
2026-08-11 08:04:16 +02:00 | Daniel | No I do not | All of the above | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | |
2026-08-11 07:36:38 +02:00 | Lauren | No I do not | All of the above | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | Municipal costs on properties are supposed to be aligned with the actual cost of service delivery and based on actual consumption of services. If a house is rented out as a short term let and 5 families take turns staying over a month it does not cost the city anything extra to service said property. The logical next step is to reclassify all rental properties as commercial (the landlord is making money off them after all) which is a slippery slope! What if I list my house as available all year and then use whatever time I manage to get booked for my own travel? It is an unjustified money grab! |
2026-08-11 06:07:33 +02:00 | Trevor | No I do not | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | ||
2026-08-11 05:37:28 +02:00 | Maureen | No I do not | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | ||
2026-08-11 04:50:47 +02:00 | Jean | Yes I do | All of the above | Listed Availability vs. Actual Booked Occupancy (Flawed Tariff Test) | |
2026-08-11 02:30:01 +02:00 | Ingrid | No I do not | All of the above | Threat to Supplemental Household Income & Rising Cost of Living | The flipping DA has become ridiculously, greedily out of touch with life for the average middle class citizen - on whom the entire economy depends especially for tax! The threats inherent in this law are so far reaching and equally stupidly focused on shortsighted greedy gain it's beyond understanding. DA loses my vote based on this alone, let alone all the other socialist BS they're forcing down our throats. |
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- Level Playing Field:
Traditional hotels, B&Bs, and registered guesthouses pay commercial rates and utility tariffs. Dedicated full-time Airbnbs operating as commercial businesses should contribute equal municipal rates. - Infrastructure Contribution:
High-density tourist rentals place heavier loads on municipal roads, water, waste, and security infrastructure in tourist hubs. Commercial rates ensure fair municipal cost recovery. - Consumer Protection:
A verified municipal registry helps eliminate online rental scams and fake listings, giving holidaymakers confidence in legitimate accommodation.
- Level Playing Field:
“Mandatory municipal registration protects tourists from fake listings and accommodation scams. Displaying an official City registration number guarantees the property is legitimate and traceable.”
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- Flawed “Availability” Test:
Taxing hosts based on open calendar days rather than actual income penalises owners whose properties sit empty off-peak. An empty flat listed online earns zero revenue yet gets hit with a commercial tax penalty. - Punishing Household Survival:
Middle-class families, retirees, and single-property owners rely on seasonal holiday letting to cover skyrocketing bond rates, electricity tariffs, and living costs. - Inflated Prices for Guests & Tourists:
Reclassifying rentals onto commercial rates increases operational costs by up to 135%. Hosts will pass these costs onto guests, making Cape Town less affordable for domestic South African families. - Draconian Sanctions & POPIA Risks:
Threatening property owners and tech platforms with 6 months in prison over administrative registration numbers is excessive. Automated data-sharing between global platforms and municipal databases raises personal privacy concerns under POPIA.
- Flawed “Availability” Test:
“Slapping commercial property rates on holiday lets will simply result in higher prices at checkout. Domestic South African families looking for affordable beach holidays will be priced out, while small local businesses, restaurants, and transport operators will suffer if tourist spending decreases.”