Land Expropriation: A Necessary Step to Achieving Economic Inclusivity, Social Equity and Spatial Justice in South Africa

Abstract

This study critically engages the ongoing national conversation and policy discourse on land expropriation without compensation in South Africa, offering both analytical insight and a principled position. It presents a qualitative, normative-analytical inquiry grounded primarily in critical documentary analysis of legislation, jurisprudence, and land reform scholarship. The study situates the contemporary debate within South Africa’s broader historical and structural context, where patterns of land dispossession continue to shape persistent spatial inequality and exclusion. The analysis proceeds from the premise that meaningful urban spatial transformation cannot be realised without addressing the structural constraints embedded within existing land governance and spatial planning systems. In this regard, debates around land expropriation are not simply questions of property law or economic policy but are fundamentally connected to broader concerns of spatial justice, economic inclusion, and social equity. These concerns are particularly salient when considering emerging imaginaries of African urban futures, including the notion of the Pan-African City—an urban formation envisioned as spatially integrated, socially inclusive, and reflective of shared continental aspirations for equitable development. The central argument advanced in this study is that unless South Africa gives serious and programmatic attention to land expropriation—moving beyond token or partial policy measures—the structural conditions necessary for such inclusive urban futures will remain unattainable. In this sense, any vision of a Pan-African City within South Africa’s borders risks remaining short-lived, if not altogether specious. To fully engage this debate, the paper unpacks and interrelates the concepts of land expropriation, compensation, expropriation without compensation, economic inclusivity, social equity, spatial justice, and the Pan-African City. These concepts cannot be adequately understood independent of the distinctly South African context—a context shaped by a history of racialised dispossession, deeply entrenched spatial inequalities, and the limitations of both first-generation (restitution, redistribution, tenure reform) and second-generation (e.g., the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act) land reform initiatives. The point advanced is unequivocal: without resolving the land question, sustainable housing and human settlement solutions in South Africa will not materialise. Anything less risks entrenching a democratic façade atop an unresolved colonial, segregationist, and apartheid foundation.

1. Introduction

The question of land ownership in South Africa continues to be among the most enduring and contentious legacies of its colonial, segregationist, and apartheid past. Through successive waves of dispossession—formalised in measures such as the Natives Land Act of 1913 and reinforced by apartheid-era spatial planning—Black people¹ were systematically denied access to land and economic opportunity. By the late 20th century, over 87 percent of arable land had been designated for the White minority, while the Black majority was restricted to overcrowded, underdeveloped, and often economically barren areas.

Although apartheid officially ended in 1994, and South Africa adopted a democratic Constitution that guarantees equitable access to land [1], the geographies of dispossession have not fundamentally shifted. Asymmetrical landownership continues to mirror the racial hierarchies of the past. Thirty years into democracy, the land question serves as a barometer of deferred liberation and a structural fault line in the post-apartheid project.

Efforts at land reform have been cautious, technocratic, and predominantly market driven. The “willing buyer, willing seller” model has proven profoundly inadequate in addressing South Africa’s deep-rooted land inequalities. Despite decades of post-apartheid policy efforts, vast numbers of people remain landless or trapped in conditions of insecure tenure.

According to the Presidential Advisory Panel [2], only 8.4 million hectares of land were transferred to Black ownership between 1994 and March 2018—accounting for under 10 percent of the country’s commercial agricultural land [3,4]. Although figures differ across sources, certain facts are undeniable: progress has been alarmingly slow, and these failures are not just design- and governance-related but also inherently political and moral. They reflect the limitations of neoliberal reform strategies in addressing historical injustices and expose the enduring power of a racialised agrarian and spatial order that continues to reproduce poverty, inequality, and exclusion.

Within this problematic market-led framework, the state has positioned itself as a “willing buyer” [5], constrained by the pace and terms set by private landowners. Rather than disrupting unjust property relations, the state has too often acquiesced to them, reinforcing the logic that land redistribution must occur on a commercial, consensual basis—even when this delays or derails transformation. This posture reflects not only a policy choice but a broader political orientation that prioritises market stability over social justice, thereby limiting the transformative potential of land reform.

This study contends that the maldistribution of land is not simply a historical aberration to be corrected, but a continuing legacy of inequality that must be dismantled through decisive, redistributive action. Land holds significance beyond purely economic value. It embodies livelihood (“ukufuya”), identity (“lobola”), and dignity (“ubuntu”). Therefore, land reform must be seen not only as a process of restitution (“fixing past disparities”) but also as a vital step in social transformation (“fixing present disparities”).

The assertion is that land expropriation, including without compensation, is not just legally justifiable but also necessary. Market-led and incremental reforms have failed to deliver meaningful justice or inclusion at scale. It is time for a shift in approach: one that puts justice at the centre, challenges hoarded privilege and redefines land as a public good instead of a commodity.

This study argues that land reform is not just framework-related or bureaucratic, but also deeply political. In many ways, it represents a critical yet unresolved dimension of South Africa’s freedom struggle. This study asks: Under what constitutional, ethical, and spatial justice conditions can land expropriation without compensation (EWC) be justified as a necessary instrument for achieving economic inclusivity, social equity, and spatial justice in post-apartheid South Africa? Without bold, programmatic, and rights-based expropriation, the promises of democracy will amount to little for millions. The land question, in this sense, is central to achieving true social and political emancipation.

This study is positioned as a normative-analytical and conceptual contribution rather than an empirical study. It advances a constitutionally grounded argument, drawing on documentary sources and interdisciplinary theory to interrogate the legal, ethical, and spatial dimensions of land expropriation in South Africa. In addition to its constitutional and policy analysis, this study introduces and develops the concept of the “Pan-African City” as a normative and conceptual framework through which to reimagine urban land justice in post-apartheid South Africa. Drawing on traditions of Pan-African political thought, African urban scholarship, and decolonial spatial theory, the concept is used not as a formally established planning doctrine, but as an analytical device to foreground questions of ownership, belonging, dignity, and spatial democracy in African cities. By linking land expropriation to this broader urban vision, the study situates land reform within debates on decolonial urban transformation and spatial justice.

2. Methods and Materials

This study adopts a qualitative research design grounded in critical documentary analysis. As indicated in Table 1, this research is anchored in the systematic examination of primary legal texts (including the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, the Expropriation Act of 2024, the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act of 2013 (SPLUMA), and relevant land reform statutes), Constitutional Court judgments, official government reports (such as the Presidential Advisory Panel and High-Level Panel reports), and peer-reviewed academic literature in the fields of land studies, political economy, constitutional law, and urban planning. These sources were purposively selected based on their direct relevance to land reform, expropriation, and spatial justice in the South African context. Documentary analysis was considered appropriate given that the central research question concerns constitutional interpretation, policy evolution, and normative justification rather than empirical measurement. The method enables a historically grounded and legally informed interrogation of how land expropriation—particularly EWC—is framed within statutory, judicial, and scholarly discourse.

Table 1. Core Documentary Sources Analysed in the Study.

Category	Examples of Sources	Purpose in the Study
Legislation	Expropriation Act Constitution of the Republic of South Africa SPLUMA	To analyse the legal framework governing land reform and expropriation
Policy documents	Breaking New Ground (BNG) Housing Policy National human settlements policies Land reform policy documents	To examine policy approaches to spatial transformation and land redistribution
Academic literature	Peer-reviewed scholarship on land reform, spatial justice, and urban transformation in South Africa	To situate the study within existing theoretical and empirical debates
Judicial and constitutional interpretation	Constitutional jurisprudence and legal commentary on Section 25 of the Constitution	To interpret legal debates regarding property rights and expropriation

The analysis is guided by an interpretive and critical-analytical framework drawing on theories of transformative constitutionalism, distributive justice, and post-colonial political economy. Rather than conducting a systematic literature review, the study undertakes a structured thematic analysis of selected texts to identify recurring legal principles, policy tensions, and conceptual linkages between land reform, economic inclusivity, social equity, and spatial justice. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between constitutional provisions (notably Sections 9, 25, and 26), judicial interpretation, and planning legislation in shaping the scope of lawful expropriation. This approach allows the study to move beyond descriptive policy review and instead offer a normative and theoretically grounded assessment of the conditions under which EWC can be justified as a constitutionally compliant and socially transformative instrument in post-apartheid South Africa.

This study does not rely on primary empirical data collection; instead, it undertakes a critical and interpretive analysis of existing legal, policy, and scholarly materials.

3. Historical and Geographical Context

Making sense of South Africa’s land crisis today requires reckoning with a long, painful history characterised by racial dispossession and spatial engineering, whose legacy continues to shape the country’s economic, social and spatial realities. This was not fortuitous but central to how power and privilege were built and maintained. The debate over expropriation, especially without compensation, is neither new nor sudden. It is an inevitable response to centuries of state-sanctioned land grabbing and forced removals under colonialism, segregation, and apartheid—or what one commentator referred to as “the hard, necessary, often ugly work of repair” (MSNBC, Reshaping the Narrative about Afrikaner Farmers in America).

From the formation of the first colonial settlement in 1652 and its subsequent expansion, successive settler regimes constructed an evolving, punitive legal framework to deprive Black people of land and deny them ownership, tenure security, and spatial autonomy. This framework culminated in the Natives Land Act of 1913, which forced Africans to give up 3.56 million hectares of land in their possession in the “White areas” and prohibited them from buying or renting land outside demarcated “native reserves.” At the time, Africans made up 67.5 percent of the national population, yet these reserves accounted for only 7.3 percent of the country’s land area, or 9.562 million hectares. Just over two decades later—by which time they comprised 73 percent of the national population—this allocation was only marginally increased, at least on paper, to 12.4 percent, or 15.733 million hectares [6].

Far from being a neutral administrative measure, the Act functioned as both a tool of economic exclusion and a mechanism of social control, displacing African communities from fertile, strategically located lands to overcrowded, unproductive margins. This forced dependency on White-owned commercial farms and urban labour markets was a central feature of racial capitalism [7]. The Act criminalised African land ownership, institutionalised racialised tenure, and laid the legal foundations for territorial apartheid [8,9].

The Group Areas Act of 1950 extended this regime into urban space, entrenching racial zoning and forcibly removing millions of Africans, Coloureds, and Indians from areas designated for “Whites only.” For example, by 1980, while one out of every three Indian families had been evicted from their homes under the specific provisions of the Act, only one out of every hundred White families experienced the same. These removals were not accidental; they were central to a broader strategy of spatial exclusion, economic marginalisation, and political disempowerment [10].

These laws and their implementation were far more than administrative regulations. They functioned as instruments of state violence, legitimised by a distorted version of the rule of law that prioritised White settler entitlements over indigenous sovereignty. The result was the consolidation of White economic and political power through brazen, unchecked territorial domination enforced by law, coercion, and surveillance.

The cumulative effect was the near-total erasure of Black land rights, stripping the majority not only of access to land, but also of economic autonomy, social dignity, and citizenship rights. It is in this context that EWC must be understood—not as a drastic break from the past, but as a long-overdue response to centuries of spatial and economic pilfering.

The legacy of these historical land laws is not confined to the past; it is visibly and materially embedded in the present-day geography of South Africa. The spatial ordering of inequality continues to define both rural and urban life, reproducing dispossession in new forms and under different legal and economic guises.

In rural South Africa, the apartheid state formalised the Bantustan system through the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 and related legislation, fragmenting the country into nominally autonomous territories. These so-called “Bantustans” or “homelands” were severely underdeveloped, ecologically degraded, and lacked essential infrastructure such as electricity, industry, or reliable transport. Far from fostering genuine self-governance, these territories functioned as labour reservoirs, subsidising White-owned capital through the supply of cheap, exploitative migrant labour. As one observer put it, they were “areas drained of their menfolk, for their chief export is labour,” with men working in White-owned mines and farms in the White areas, while women and the elderly were left behind in the Bantustans to survive on “a primitive agriculture incapable of providing even subsistence” [11]. Although Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, sardonically described this as “a policy of good neighbourliness,” the system effectively manufactured statelessness, denying Africans full citizenship and entrenching spatial retribalisation under the guise of ethnic self-determination.

Post-1994, while the Bantustans were legally dismantled, their spatial and governance legacies endure. Many of these areas continue to suffer from insecure tenure, weak infrastructure, and opaque land administration, often governed by traditional authorities whose power has been reaffirmed—rather than transformed—by post-apartheid legal frameworks [12]. These tenure systems not only limit economic participation but also perpetuate gender inequality and political marginalisation.

In urban contexts, the apartheid spatial blueprint persists through zoning laws, transport inequity, informal settlements, and speculative land markets. Despite progressive post-1994 laws such as SPLUMA, cities remain acutely segregated, with the working class and poor relegated to outlying, under-serviced areas. These settlements are not only underdeveloped but are often deliberately obscured from view, reflecting the state’s ongoing concern with urban conformity and order rather than inclusion [13]. At the same time, while municipal spatial plans promote ideals of urban compaction and integration, these goals remain largely unrealised due to municipalities’ limited capacity to control infrastructure provision or coordinate effectively with other government spheres and private sector actors [14]. Inner-city spaces, meanwhile, are increasingly commodified, reflecting a logic of market exclusion rather than constitutional inclusion.

This is not simply a technical planning problem; it is a constitutional crisis. Section 25(5) of the Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to have access to land on an equitable basis, while Section 26 upholds the right to have access to adequate housing. Yet both are routinely undermined by legal fragmentation, policy incoherence, and a lack of political will. The urban land question thus becomes a mirror of the rural one: both are shaped by a history of exclusion and a present defined by inaction.

The geography of exclusion in South Africa is neither accidental nor incidental. It is the physical legacy of colonial conquest, racial capitalism, and apartheid engineering. Undoing this legacy will take more than just redistribution. The situation demands what may be termed “redisruption”: the intentional and active dismantling of spatial inequality through decisive legal, political, and economic interventions to realise cities and rural landscapes that are just, inclusive, and free. For this, EWC is fundamental.

4. Conceptual Framework

This study draws on interdisciplinary perspectives from key land studies, structural inequality theory, and post-colonial political economy. These strengthen the argument that land expropriation is not just another policy choice, but a critical tool for advancing redistributive justice, reshaping the economy, and deepening democracy. Within this framework, the idea of the Pan-African City is developed as a normative urban construct that synthesises principles of land justice, decolonial spatial restructuring, and collective ownership. It is positioned within ongoing debates in African urban theory and the “right to the city” tradition, and functions as a forward-looking application of the constitutional and redistributive arguments advanced in this study.

Crucial to this framework is the understanding that land in South Africa has always been more than a resource. It is a site of power and prestige, a symbol of citizenship and being, and an arena of historical contestation [15]. The current spatial and economic order did not arise organically; it was constructed through violence, legal exclusion, and racialised dispossession. Restoring land to those dispossessed is therefore not simply restitution—it is structural reconstitution, aimed at reforming the foundations of economic and social participation.

Land reform is thus situated within broader debates about distributive justice [16], transformative constitutionalism [17], and post-colonial state-building. This approach also recognises the limits of market-based models in delivering justice in highly unequal, post-conflict societies. Informed by these traditions, the following sections interrogate the legal, political, and ethical dimensions of land expropriation as a means of transformation.

4.1. Land Expropriation

Land expropriation refers to the state’s lawful acquisition of private property, typically for a public purpose or in the public interest. Globally, this mechanism has been used to support infrastructure development, conservation, and urban growth. In South Africa, however, expropriation must be understood within the distinct necessity of redressing centuries of racialised land dispossession [15,18].

In democratic South Africa, expropriation serves both utilitarian and transformative aims. It seeks to reverse the structural legacies of conquest and apartheid planning, enable equitable access to land and resources, and foster broader socio-economic inclusion for historically marginalised groups. In this sense, it functions as an avenue to restorative justice and nation-building.

The legal foundation for expropriation lies in Section 25 of the Constitution, which protects property rights while mandating land reform. Section 25(2) allows the state to expropriate property “for a public purpose or in the public interest,” and Section 25(3) requires compensation to be “just and equitable,” considering factors such as the history of acquisition, current use, and the purpose of the expropriation [1].

The Provision of Land and Assistance Amendment Act of 2008 [19], which revised the original 1993 Act, aimed to allow the state to acquire, hold, and allocate land for agricultural and settlement purposes, while offering various forms of assistance to beneficiaries. Yet, its reliance on market-based transactions—especially the “willing buyer, willing seller” model—undermines its transformative potential and has failed to disrupt entrenched ownership patterns.

The Expropriation Act was introduced to give legislative effect to certain constitutional provisions. It defines lawful expropriation, offers procedural safeguards, and outlines conditions under which zero compensation may be justified—such as in cases of land held for speculation, abandoned property, or land previously acquired through state subsidies or preferential treatment [20].

These measures reflect a shift from narrowly protecting individual property rights toward a socially responsive and historically anchored conception of ownership. As the Constitutional Court held in Haffejee and Others v eThekwini Municipality and Others (CCT 110/10) [21], “just and equitable” compensation is not limited to market value but must reflect broader justice considerations. Expropriation thus becomes not just a legal mechanism, but a constitutional commitment to transformation.

Brazil offers a compelling case. Article 5, XXIII of its 1988 Constitution protects property, but only if it serves a social function. The National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) is empowered to expropriate idle or underutilised land for redistribution. Compensation is often issued via long-term government bonds, rather than cash, reinforcing the idea that redistribution does not have to follow market logic [22,23]. Though implementation has been uneven, Brazilian courts have consistently prioritised social justice over absolute property rights.

Namibia, similarly, inherited a racially skewed land ownership system. While its Constitution protects property rights, Article 16(2) permits expropriation in the public interest, with fair compensation. The Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act of 1995 initially relied on a market-based model, but dissatisfaction with its slow progress led to constitutional debates and the exploration of more assertive reforms. Namibian courts have largely upheld the legitimacy of expropriation when conducted lawfully, but have insisted on procedural fairness and the right to a hearing [24].

Both cases affirm that expropriation can be compatible with constitutional architecture, so long as it serves clear public purposes. Brazil’s social function doctrine offers a strong foundation for intervention, while Namibia emphasises the importance of legal clarity, institutional capacity, and careful planning.

4.2. Expropriation Without Compensation

The debate over EWC marks a pivotal moment in South Africa’s democratic journey. It raises questions about rights, justice, and the redistributive obligations of the post-apartheid state.

At the centre of this debate is a clash between two paradigms: on the one hand, a liberal defence of property rights and market-led redistribution; on the other, a transformative justice framework calling for radical redress. Since 1994, South Africa’s land reform programme, largely reliant on voluntary market transactions, has failed to alter the racial geography of land ownership. As Lahiff [25] observes, the “willing buyer, willing seller” model has been slow, expensive, and vulnerable to elite capture.

EWC is proposed as a remedy. It recognises that some injustices cannot be addressed through market mechanisms, and that compensating those who benefited from dispossession risks legitimising past wrongs. As Justice Dikgang Moseneke put it: “The willingness of the buyer and or of the seller may facilitate a smooth transaction but does not seem to be a constitutional requirement” [2].

Contrary to common belief, EWC is not unconstitutional. Section 25(3) allows for “just and equitable” compensation, which, in some cases, can lawfully amount to zero. This interpretation has been confirmed in both legal and academic circles [26]. The Constitution allows for a range of compensation outcomes, depending on context, from full market-related payment (often mischaracterised as standard “buying”) to no compensation at all (often misrepresented as “confiscation”).

Although a proposed constitutional amendment to Section 25 failed in 2021, the Expropriation Act provides a statutory framework through which EWC may be considered in appropriate circumstances. The Act does not establish automatic grounds for zero compensation. Rather, it affirms that compensation must remain “just and equitable” and introduces a set of factors that may be considered when determining whether compensation could be zero in a particular case. These considerations include, among others, situations where land is held for speculative purposes, where property has been abandoned, or where the acquisition or improvement of the land was substantially supported through state financial assistance or subsidies. Such provisions therefore operate within a case-by-case evaluative framework rather than as predetermined triggers for zero compensation.

Opponents argue that EWC could deter investment or destabilise property markets. Yet such arguments often rely on misleading comparisons with Zimbabwe, ignoring significant legal, institutional, and political differences between the two contexts [27].

Ethical considerations should not be eclipsed by market concerns. Section 25(3) requires that the way land was acquired be considered. As Justice Albie Sachs noted, this includes land obtained “free of charge by government or acquired at a knock-down price” under racist legal systems [2]. Hall [28,29] goes further, arguing that compensating such beneficiaries effectively rewards injustice.

At the 2025 Steve Biko Memorial Lecture, Muzi Sikhakhane issued a striking moral challenge:

“Where have you heard 65 million people from whom land was stolen saying that in order to get it back, they must litigate… we lived before we were invaded… we had laws… we need to create a Constitution where what was stolen must come back.”

This is not to invite anarchy or disorder, but to advance constitutional transformation. EWC, when properly regulated, is not the rejection of law; it is the law fully realised in service of justice.

4.3. Economic Inclusivity

In the post-apartheid context, economic inclusivity does not just imply market participation. That could result in merely integrating the previously excluded into existing systems of inequality. Instead, it also implies redistributing systemic power and resetting the foundations of ownership and control that would enable historically marginalised communities to access and benefit from productive assets, particularly land [30].

Within African developmental thought, inclusivity is not about GDP growth alone. It means dismantling the colonial economic architecture that excludes Black people from land, finance, infrastructure, and decision-making. This requires not only policy reform but a deliberate confrontation with the inherited economic order that continues to prioritise capital over justice.

Land enables subsistence farming, cooperative enterprises, housing security, and entry into formal economies. It forms the material basis for self-reliance and collective economic agency. Without land, other interventions, such as access to finance or training, are ineffective because they are unable to take root or generate long-term transformation. Access to land is also central to food sovereignty, the informal economy, and intergenerational wealth—all of which are critical to genuine economic inclusion.

South Africa’s economic structure still mirrors apartheid-era spatial and asset inequality. Productive land remains concentrated in White ownership, while Blacks remain largely landless or relegated to insecure tenure in underdeveloped areas. This spatial and asset divide continues to define who holds economic power and who gains from it. Piketty [31] argues that asset redistribution, especially of land, is essential in societies shaped by racial capitalism. Without it, there can be no inclusive growth.

True inclusivity requires a redistributive economic reordering. It demands a break from the logic that sees land as a mere commodity and instead centres it as a social good tied to justice, dignity, and belonging. Redistribution must therefore be seen not as an economic burden, but as a necessary investment in a more equitable and stable society. EWC—particularly where compensation would entrench past injustice—must be seen as a prerequisite for sustainable, broad-based development. Without it, democracy risks being layered over economic apartheid, preserving the illusion of transformation while leaving the foundations of dispossession intact.

4.4. Social Equity

Social equity goes beyond the idea of treating everyone the same. It demands contextual justice, an approach that recognises the need for differentiated responses to historical and systemic inequality. In the South African context, this means recognising that those who were dispossessed, displaced, and marginalised under colonialism, segregation and apartheid require targeted remedies to achieve substantive parity with those who benefited from these systems [32]. In a society where land was a central mechanism of exclusion, restoring it is not just a matter of policy reform, but of democratic fulfilment.

Equality, in its formal sense, assumes that all citizens start from the same place. But equity acknowledges that the starting points have been wholly unequal, and that the playing field itself has been engineered to privilege some at the expense of others. EWC offers a direct response to this reality. It does not undermine the principle of equality. It reinforces it, by addressing the legacy of land dispossession and the racialised economic structures that remain in place. The aim is not revenge, but justice: to deal honestly with unequal histories by applying remedies that reflect their depth and impact.

Section 9 of the Constitution enshrines the right to equality, including equity, which allows for the state to take positive measures to redress disadvantage. Importantly, it is not limited to non-discrimination; it requires proactive intervention. EWC, when undertaken in accordance with the law and the Constitution, is not an aberration. It is a constitutionally permissible, even necessary, instrument to correct enduring patterns of injustice.

Moreover, social equity is not just a moral ideal or political talking point; it is a legal duty, firmly enshrined in the Constitution and central to its transformative vision for a just society. It ties South Africa’s history of injustice to the promises of its democracy, urging the state to go beyond token measures and commit to material redress. Land, as a foundational asset, lies at the heart of this redress.

The pursuit of equity must also be accompanied by vigilance: policies like EWC must be implemented transparently, lawfully, and with clear criteria to avoid abuse, elite capture, or further exclusion. But the existence of risks does not negate the moral and constitutional necessity of the intervention.

In short, equity is not about forgetting the past—it is about facing it honestly. It is not about erasing history, but about confronting it and addressing its consequences. Unless the lasting effects of land dispossession are properly addressed, South Africa’s democracy will remain incomplete, offering formal rights while leaving opportunity out of reach for many.

4.5. Spatial Justice

Spatial justice refers to the fair distribution of land, infrastructure, and opportunity across space. In South Africa, inequality is not only racial or economic; it is also profoundly spatial, produced through centuries of forced removals, segregated planning, and legalised exclusion.

SPLUMA mandates spatial justice as a core planning principle, with Section 7(a) calling for the redress of past imbalances and improved access to land for disadvantaged communities. Yet, despite this clear legislative intent, implementation remains inconsistent and often falls short of meaningful transformation.

Restorative spatial transformation must actively reconfigure unjust geographies. This includes reintegrating displaced communities into well-located areas, unlocking strategically situated urban land for affordable housing, and dismantling the persistent divide between townships and urban cores. It is not only about preventing future exclusion; it is about actively reversing the spatial patterns of injustice that continue to shape daily life.

The Constitutional Court has started to give shape to this principle. In landmark decisions such as Residents of Joe Slovo Community, Western Cape v Thubelisha Homes and Others (CCT 22/08) [33] and Occupiers of 51 Olivia Road v City of Johannesburg (CCT 24/07) [34], the Court affirmed that decisions about land use and housing must centre the values of dignity, participation, and inclusion. These rulings signal a growing recognition that spatial redress is fundamental to the constitutional promise of justice and equality.

Spatial justice is also inherently multidimensional. It demands an awareness of how spatial exclusion intersects with other forms of marginalisation. Women’s access to land, for instance, remains limited by both formal legal barriers and customary norms that reinforce patriarchy. Similarly, people with disabilities and migrants often face added layers of exclusion in the design and allocation of space and services.

Ultimately, spatial justice calls for a rethinking of land reform as a process of reconstruction. It insists that justice must be built into the very layout of our cities, towns, and rural landscapes—making space itself a site where justice is not only envisioned but actively realised.

4.6. The Pan-African City

The concept of the Pan-African City, as developed in this study, refers to a decolonised and spatially just urban formation grounded in principles of collective ownership, dignity, belonging, and democratic access to land. It is not presented as an established statutory model or formal planning doctrine, but as a normative and analytical construct derived from Pan-African political thought and African urban scholarship. Its intellectual foundations lie in traditions that emphasise self-determination, post-colonial sovereignty, and the reclamation of African space from colonial and apartheid spatial orders.

African urban theorists such as Simone, Nuttall and Mbembe [35,36] have argued that African cities cannot be understood through imported Eurocentric planning paradigms alone. Instead, they must be analysed through their own histories of informality, hybridity, and spatial contestation. Similarly, Soja’s articulation [37] of spatial justice and Lefebvre’s “right to the city” tradition (as extended in African scholarship) emphasise that urban space is not neutral but politically produced. The Pan-African City concept engages these debates by foregrounding the question of land ownership as the central axis of urban transformation.

In the South African context, cities remain structured by colonial conquest and apartheid engineering. Despite formal desegregation, well-located urban land continues to be concentrated in private hands, often subject to speculative holding and exclusionary market practices. The Pan-African City is therefore not just symbolic; it represents a structural reordering of urban land relations. It envisions cities in which land is treated as a social good rather than a speculative commodity, and where historically marginalised communities are not only accommodated but empowered as co-producers of urban space.

The concept serves a specific analytical purpose in this paper: it connects land expropriation—including EWC in constitutionally justified circumstances—to a broader project of spatial reconstruction. Rather than treating land reform as a rural or agrarian question alone, the Pan-African City reframes it as an urban justice imperative. Expropriation of underutilised, speculative, or strategically located urban land becomes a mechanism through which constitutional commitments to dignity (Section 10), equality (Section 9), equitable access to land (Section 25), and housing (Section 26) can be materially realised.

The Pan-African City should thus be understood as a forward-looking normative horizon—a conceptual device that integrates economic inclusivity, social equity, and spatial justice into a coherent urban vision. It does not replace existing planning frameworks but challenges them to confront the enduring coloniality embedded in property relations and spatial form. In this sense, it situates land reform within a broader continental and decolonial discourse on reclaiming African cities for the majority who inhabit them.

5. Housing, Urban Inclusion, and the Pan-African City

While land reform in South Africa is often framed as a rural issue, its most urgent implications are now distinctly urban. The majority of South Africans live in cities, yet access to well-located urban land remains acutely unequal. This inequality is shaped not only by apartheid-era planning legacies but also by speculative markets and exclusionary zoning practices. The persistence of informality, insecure tenure, evictions, and the peripheralisation of the poor exposes the failure to treat land justice as central to urban inclusion. This critical blind spot in post-apartheid land reform led SERI [38] to observe that current policy largely leaves unchallenged the combined influence of market forces and inherited spatial forms in perpetuating exclusionary urban landscapes.

5.1. Urban Informality and the Politics of Land Access

While colonial and apartheid spatial planning established the structural foundations of South Africa’s urban form, contemporary market-based and technocratic planning mechanisms operate as the primary processes through which these historical spatial inequalities continue to be reproduced. Informality in South African cities is not an anomaly but a direct result of ongoing exclusion. It shows up in the way people are forced to live: in informal settlements, backyard shacks, and overcrowded homes, often without secure tenure or basic services. This condition stems from a legal and policy framework that treats urban land primarily as something that individuals and corporates buy and sell instead of something held in the public interest [13].

The absence of proactive urban land reform has enabled speculative forces to dominate, placing well-located land beyond the reach of poor and working-class communities. The bigger housing developments, regularly positioned on the urban edge reflect a technocratic model that prioritises scale and efficiency over integration and equity. While not mirroring apartheid design by intent, these megaprojects often entrench new forms of marginalisation under the aegis of development.

Instead of regularising informality or integrating marginalised communities, urban planning regimes frequently criminalise land occupations and enforce evictions, thereby sustaining a system where urban presence is tolerated but not recognised in law or policy. Though these practices may echo apartheid-era exclusions, today’s drivers are primarily market-based and technocratic, not racially prescriptive. As COHRE [39] observed regarding Johannesburg’s inner-city evictions, these approaches marginalise the urban poor, often under the guise of urban renewal. Urban land, therefore, must be reframed as a constitutional right and redistributive necessity, not just a planning concern.

5.2. Spatial Justice in the African City

Across Africa, urban development is characterised by deep inequalities and fragmented spatial realities. Informal settlements often exist alongside elite enclaves, shaped by a post-colonial urbanism that perpetuates marginalisation through exclusionary planning and market-led growth. In South Africa, the spatial legacy of segregation persists, not through deliberate replication, but through the obduracy of inherited urban forms and the continued primacy of technocratic planning.

Access to land, infrastructure, and opportunity in South Africa still follows the patterns of historical exclusion. Today, that exclusion continues through tools that appear neutral on the surface, such as zoning laws, decisions about where infrastructure is built, and the way land markets operate. The Constitution, through Sections 25(5) and 26, clearly recognises the rights to fair access to land and decent housing. But in practice, these rights are limited by a development model that puts the value of land as an investment ahead of the need for fundamental social change.

If South Africa is serious about spatial justice, then simply handing out land or improving basic services is not enough. What is needed is a complete rethinking of the city as a space that includes everyone. As Soja [37] reminds us, spatial justice is tied to the idea of the “right to the city”—the right to help shape urban life and be part of it. That means facing up to how land works in today’s economy and moving past the trope of “apartheid geography” explaining everything. Real justice now depends on building new ways of thinking about space, ones that centre collective ownership, serve the public good, and open access to land in ways that are truly democratic.

5.3. Land Reform as a Catalyst for Inclusive Urban Development

To fulfil its constitutional assurances, land reform must be placed at the heart of urban transformation. This entails not just redistribution, but a fundamental rethinking of planning and governance. A transformative urban land reform agenda would include:

• Expropriation of well-located, underutilised urban land for public benefit;
• Strengthening tenure security in informal settlements through participatory upgrading and alternative legal instruments (e.g., collective titling, usufruct rights);
• Implementing land value capture mechanisms to redirect speculative gains toward public investment;
• Integrating housing, land, and infrastructure planning through a justice-based lens;
• Enabling community-driven planning that empowers residents as co-producers of urban space.

Realising this vision means breaking away from the usual ways cities are planned, especially the tendency to see informality as something that needs to be wiped out. It also calls for a more assertive state, one that is willing to use the tools offered by the Constitution, including EWC, to disrupt the deeply rooted patterns of exclusion that still shape urban life.

5.4. Afrocentric Urbanism and Land Justice

The Pan-African City offers a template for a desirable post-colonial urban future. It is not a theoretical ideal but a practical blueprint for cities founded on principles of land justice, Afrocentric design, democratic governance, and ecological sustainability.

A Pan-African City is:

• Decolonial in design: It rejects grid plans and exclusionary zoning for people-centred spatial arrangements;
• Collective in land ownership: It recognises land as a common good and promotes communal tenure;
• Plural in identity: It values diverse cultural practices of space-making;
• Redistributive in economics: It uses land reform to broaden access to infrastructure, livelihood, and dignity.

Seen this way, land reform is about more than just fixing rural injustices. It is also a way to take back urban space from planning systems shaped by colonial ideas and from the grip of the market. The idea of a Pan-African City reflects this, as it gives physical form to justice and equity through new ways of imagining and shaping our cities.

5.5. Economic Inclusivity, Social Equity, Spatial Justice and the South African City

For economic inclusion, social justice, and spatial justice to be fully realised, the urban aspects of the land crisis must be tackled decisively. This will require more than policy changes; it necessitates a shift in how the city is conceived—not as a space for control or containment, but as a site of transformation. Land EWC, when grounded in constitutional and moral legitimacy, should be understood as essential to achieving justice in cities, not only in rural areas. Without meaningful change in how urban space is owned and shared, the promises of post-apartheid democracy will remain out of reach.

6. Critique of Post-Apartheid Land Reform Policy

Democratic transition came with a constitutional commitment that land reform would be a tool for redress, equity, and transformation. However, more than three decades later, land reform remains one of South Africa’s most unfulfilled promises. The policy path since 1994 shows a clear tension between justice and market logic, alongside a failure to disrupt the deep-rooted structures of racialised land ownership. This section looks critically at how land reform policy has developed over time, from the first-generation reforms of the 1990s and early 2000s to the second-generation reforms introduced after 2010, which focused more on integration and spatial justice.

6.1. First-Generation Land Reform: Restitution, Redistribution, and Tenure Reform

Underpinned by a cautious embrace of constitutionalism and the rule of law, the land reform programme was initially organised around a tripartite framework: restitution, redistribution, and tenure reform. While symbolically significant, this framework ultimately came to reflect a dispassionate, even callous, compromise: it prioritised legal continuity and market stability over radical transformation [18,40].

The Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994 [41] sought to restore land or afford alternative compensation to individuals or communities dispossessed after 19 June 1913, under racially discriminatory laws and practices. However, the restitution process has been protracted, underfunded, and heavily legalistic, with an over-reliance on litigation and insufficient support for post-settlement development [9]. Although, by 31 March 2024, restitution claims had reportedly resulted in the return of about 3.9 million hectares of land, the majority of the 83,205 successful land claims have been settled through cash compensation amounting to R26 billion—effectively re-inscribing dispossession rather than reversing it [42].

From its inception, the redistribution programme, intended to equitably transfer agricultural land, has adopted a demand-led approach through the “willing buyer, willing seller” model. Predicated on a market-friendly interpretation of the Constitution, this mechanism has relied on voluntary transactions, state subsidies, and negotiated purchases. However, this model continues to prove inefficient, expensive, and poorly targeted, often enabling the acquisition of marginal or non-viable land, while failing to disrupt concentrated patterns of ownership [25]. Its failure to redistribute land at scale points not only to technical limitations, but to the ideological refusal to challenge private property as a structural barrier.

The third pillar—tenure reform—has perhaps been the most neglected. Aimed at securing the rights of communal land occupiers, labour tenants, farm dwellers, and others with informal or off-register rights, this programme has been encountering serious political and legal complexity, particularly in former Bantustans. Customary land governance, intersecting with patriarchy, elite appropriation, and state abdication, has produced a tenure regime characterised by legal ambiguity, gender discrimination, and community disempowerment [12]. The Communal Land Rights Act of 2004 [43], expected to clarify rights in these areas, was declared unconstitutional in 2010 for failing to uphold participatory and democratic governance of land (Tongoane & Others v Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs and Others, CCT 100/09) [44].

These first-generation reforms, while legally significant, remain trapped within the logic of reconciliation without redistribution. They offer procedural justice without structural change, ultimately leaving the racialised land patterns they were meant to undo, largely intact.

6.2. Second-Generation Land Reform: SPLUMA, IDPs, and Housing Strategies

By the early 2010s, it became increasingly clear that land reform could not be addressed in isolation from spatial planning, urbanisation, and integrated development. The state’s response was a second generation of additional policy tools aimed at aligning land use, human settlement, and socio-economic planning within a unified developmental framework.

SPLUMA was introduced to replace the fragmented and racially biased planning laws left behind by apartheid. It set out to build a single, coherent system for managing land use across all levels of government. Its goals included promoting sustainable development and aligning spatial planning with constitutional values like equality and redress [45].

But while SPLUMA had progressive aims, its real-world impact has been limited. The main reasons include patchy implementation, weak coordination between institutions, and a failure to connect land use planning with the goals of land reform. Municipalities, which are supposed to lead implementation, often lack the resources or political backing to bring land reform into their spatial plans. On top of that, SPLUMA does not fit well with customary or communal land systems. This mismatch creates confusion over who has authority and often leads to the exclusion of rural communities [46].

At the same time, tools like Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) and the National Housing Code were introduced to support more inclusive urban development by improving access to housing, services, and jobs. The Breaking New Ground: A Comprehensive Plan for the Development of Sustainable Human Settlements policy was introduced in 2004 as a major shift in South Africa’s housing policy framework, moving beyond the earlier Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) housing approach toward the development of integrated and sustainable human settlements. Subsequent policy developments after 2014 did not introduce BNG as a new programme but rather reflected renewed policy emphasis, institutional recalibration, and implementation adjustments within the broader BNG framework [47]. Post-2014 developments, therefore, represent policy refinement and renewed implementation efforts within the BNG framework rather than the initial introduction of the policy.

Even so, these efforts have largely remained disconnected from land reform, both in how they are understood and how they are carried out. Many housing projects go ahead without dealing with the underlying land ownership issues. This often results in insecure tenure, growing informal settlements, and the takeover of well-located land by elites. The issue of urban land, which plays a major role in sustaining inequality, has not been properly addressed in spatial planning. In many cases, the state continues to operate more like a developer than a force for redistribution [13].

6.3. Policy Failure, Bureaucratic Paralysis, and the Urban-Rural Divide

Despite the avowed commitment to transformation, land reform in South Africa has struggled to move forward. It has been held back by acute systemic lethargy, unclear legal arrangements, and political avoidance. The state’s approach has often leaned toward technocratic solutions, prioritising compliance and process over real outcomes and a sense of justice.

There are several key weaknesses that continue to limit progress:

• Lack of political will: Land reform has been subordinated to the goals of macroeconomic stability and elite consensus. As a result, there has been little disruption to entrenched agrarian and urban interests.
• Bureaucratic delays: Confusion over mandates, chronic underfunding, and sluggish administration have stalled institutions meant to deliver land reform. This has created serious backlogs and eroded public confidence in the process.
• Policy incoherence: There has been a failure to align land reform with related areas like urban planning, housing, and local government. This has led to a fragmented response and has reinforced the urban-rural binary. Land reform is still largely treated as a rural issue, even as cities grow rapidly and informal settlements expand.

Collectively, this policy review shows that post-apartheid land reform has fallen short of being the transformative agenda it was meant to be. It has instead functioned as a managed transition, designed to protect existing property relations while offering negligible redress to the landless. Without a decisive shift in legal interpretation, political will, and state capacity, even the most well-intentioned reforms will continue to reproduce containment rather than enable transformation.

7. The Litmus Test for EWC

In 2019, the City of Ekurhuleni in Gauteng Province expropriated a 34-hectare property—Portion 406 of the Driefontein Farm—owned by Business Venture Investments 900. The municipality offered zero compensation, contending that the land had remained vacant for approximately three decades, had been held purely for speculative purposes, contained no improvements or lease agreements, and that the public interest—particularly the development of social housing to relieve pressure from nearby informal settlements—outweighed the private owner’s proprietary interests. Although the owner did not contest the legality of the expropriation itself, it disputed the amount of compensation, asserting entitlement to at least R30 million. An independent valuation had placed the property’s market value at approximately R64 million.

The dispute consequently became the subject of mediation proceedings scheduled for October 2025. Those negotiations ultimately failed to produce a settlement, and the matter was set down for trial in February 2026. The case attracted significant public and scholarly attention because it was widely expected to serve as an important judicial test of Section 25 of the Constitution, particularly regarding the circumstances under which compensation for expropriated land might lawfully be set at zero [48,49]. However, shortly before the scheduled trial, the municipality reversed its position. In January 2026, following the completion of an environmental assessment, the City withdrew its intention to acquire the property on the basis that the land was unsuitable for human settlement. As a result, the anticipated judicial determination did not materialise.

Nevertheless, the dispute remains analytically significant. Even in the absence of a final court ruling, the factual circumstances and legal arguments advanced by the parties provide a useful basis for considering the kinds of factors that courts might weigh when assessing the constitutionality and justification of zero compensation under Section 25. In this sense, the case still permits a degree of anticipatory analysis regarding the possible contours of future jurisprudence on land EWC in South Africa.

Commenting on the Driefontein Farm case, former South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA) Chairperson Neil Gopal said: “A buy-and-hold strategy is an internationally recognised real estate approach. If you expropriate property held under such a strategy for zero compensation, it will disrupt property market fundamentals, as well as capital flows and capital markets” [48].

But that disruption is precisely the point. The very fact that it unsettles property markets is why it must happen. The current property market logic was never neutral. It is structured to reward exclusion and inequality. It was deliberately designed to entrench historical inequality by commodifying land and concentrating it in the hands of a few, often for speculative gain rather than productive use.

This market structure rewards hoarding over utilisation: land is bought not to meet basic needs or drive development, but to appreciate passively while others remain landless. As a result, vast tracts of urban and rural land sit idle while millions live without secure tenure or adequate housing. The cycle must be broken. Disrupting this perverse incentive structure is not a threat to the public interest—it is a precondition for a just and sustainable property system.

The South African Constitution is not silent on the friction between individual property rights and the public good. Section 25 explicitly permits the expropriation “in the public interest,” which includes “the nation’s commitment to land reform.” Moreover, the Constitution recognises that collective rights—such as equitable access to land, dignity, and socio-economic security—may override individual property claims when those claims perpetuate structural injustice.

Where land is being withheld from productive use purely to accumulate value, particularly in a context of deep historical dispossession, the individual’s right to monopolise cannot supersede society’s collective right to redress, equitable distribution, and social justice. Compounding this is the fact that Gauteng is by far the smallest province in terms of land area, yet the most densely populated, with a steadily growing influx of households from other provinces and outside the country contributing to an ever-worsening housing backlog and land shortage.

Far from encouraging healthy investment, land speculation distorts the economy. It pushes land prices well beyond their real value, pulls money away from sectors that produce goods and jobs, and locks land out of circulation for years, sometimes even decades. This kind of extractive behaviour creates artificial scarcity, deepens spatial inequality, and holds back inclusive growth.

If South Africa were to expropriate speculative, buy-and-hold land without compensation, it would not only bring land use policy in line with the Constitution’s transformative vision—it would also unlock economic potential that has been sitting idle. This move would support social justice and directly tackle the legacy of dispossession that sits at the heart of inequality. Taking back such land would not destabilise the economy. On the contrary, it would help reset the property market so that it serves its real purpose of meeting people’s needs, supporting development, and helping build a fairer economy. By putting unused land to work, the state could boost local economies, create jobs, and open the door for more investment in infrastructure and enterprise.

South Africa’s property system is not just an economic arrangement. It is ingrained in the history of colonialism, segregation, and apartheid. These systems stripped land and wealth from the Black majority and handed ownership to a minority. That ownership was later locked in and valorised through market mechanisms that continue to shape property relations today.

Allowing speculative buy-and-hold practices to continue is not only a policy failure; it perpetuates historical injustice under the guise of “market efficiency.” Real reconciliation and meaningful transformation require more than redistributing land—they demand dismantling the systems that entrench inequality. EWC, carefully targeted at land not being used for productive or public purposes, is a necessary tool in that process. It is important to be clear: this argument is not about indiscriminate seizure. It is about making deliberate, strategic choices. Specifically, it requires expropriating land, that is:

• Held only for speculative gain, with no productive use or social value;
• Blocking land reform, housing, or economic development;
• Driving artificial scarcity and pushing up land prices.

In these cases, EWC is not a punishment; it is a correction. It recalibrates the relationship between private property and the public good, ensuring that property serves society and not the other way around.

8. Conclusions

This paper has argued that land expropriation, particularly without compensation, is not only a necessary response to historical dispossession, but also a vital step toward building economic inclusion, social equity, and spatial justice in post-apartheid South Africa. Anchored in a constitutional framework that prioritises redress, dignity, and transformation, land reform must be seen as both a legal obligation and a moral necessity.

For centuries, colonial conquest and apartheid policies forcibly removed Black people from land and cities, creating a geography of exclusion that still shapes the country’s economic and social realities. Although post-apartheid land reform has carried notable weight, it has fallen short of driving meaningful structural change. This failure is largely due to market-driven approaches, bureaucratic delays, and a lack of political commitment. As a result, millions of people remain marginalised, especially in urban areas where informal settlements and insecure land tenure continue to reflect the neglected work of liberation.

This paper has shown that land must be understood as more than just a commodity. It is also a source of livelihood, identity, and belonging. When viewed this way, land reform becomes closely tied to broader development goals such as reducing poverty, achieving food security, creating more inclusive cities, and transforming spatial patterns of inequality. Whether through restitution or planning instruments like SPLUMA, expanding land access must be directly linked to economic opportunity and the full experience of citizenship.

One of the conceptual contributions of this paper has been to connect land reform with the normative construct of the Pan-African City, thereby situating debates on expropriation within broader discussions of decolonial urban transformation and spatial justice. This shifts the conversation away from land reform as a technical or bureaucratic process, and toward a deeper transformation of how cities in Africa are conceived and built.

To move forward, South Africa needs a bold and programmatic approach to land expropriation. This strategy must be rooted in the law, guided by ethical principles, and carried out with political courage. It will require new, third-generation policy tools. These include fully using Section 25 of the Constitution, implementing expropriation legislation, and connecting land reform to housing, planning, and development in a much more integrated way. It also means rejecting narratives driven by fear and making it clear that restitution is not about retribution—it is about restoring land, dignity, and the democratic vision that inspired the struggle for freedom.

In the end, land expropriation is not just about correcting the past. It is about building a just future. The path to economic inclusion, social equity, and spatial justice runs through the land. Until land is fairly shared, the work of liberation remains unfinished.