The rates and tariffs linked to property values is unsustainable & unaffordable for many homeowners

Following the increase of 26% to my City of Cape Town rates account for 2025, I am now faced with a 78% increase with effect from 1 July 2026 (as per your calculator, based on the new valuation for my property and rates / tariffs increase for 2026). This is an unconscionable, unreasonable and unsustainable increase for anyone on a salary or pension/annuity income.

I note boasts about the City of Cape Town's "ambitious" infrastructure spending, but from what the City of Cape Town is expecting to extract from me and many homeowners in similar circumstances, the City has not considered, had any care or conducted due diligence regarding the sustainability of the source of the funds for your "ambitious" spending. An integral part of good, sustainable governance is the duty of the municipality to ensure the sustainability of your funding. Yet you have clearly not conducted any research or even attempted to validate your assumption that high property value homeowners can afford your proposed increases.

The City of Cape Town's rates and tariff increases for 2025 and proposed increases for 2026 were/are completely unaffordable and unsustainable for me, as I am sure they are for all salary/pension earners who have bought their home many years ago, and it has escalated in value.

The escalation in property value in my neighbourhood is due to the property market being driven up by developers, which the City is encouraging due to the additional rates and development charges you will earn. My home is a basic, unchanged, old house in a suburb that has become desirable. My neighbours and I work to improve our suburb, and we should be recognised and supported in this, not subjected to punitive, unaffordable increases which will force us out of our homes.

It is the duty of the municipality to ensure that the source of funds for the City's spending is sustainable. Clearly, given that households like mine are seen as a source of the funds, then you have not taken any care to ensure that the source of funds is sustainable.

I also hear that the City and the Mayor are trying to protect middle class households. I am middle class, I was a hard working salary earner, now living on an annuity pension from the retirement fund I struggled to save while I was working, where is the City's care? The fact that I purchased my home in a rural suburb with no sewerage or streetlights many years ago, but its value has escalated due to forces I cannot control, does not change that. And please do not point me again to your carefully constructed pensioners and other rebates, as they are constructed in such a way that they do not apply to owners of high value properties, as you well know.

When you ignore or pay lip service to comments from your ratepayers, they are forced to take you to court.