The move is aimed at forcing municipalities to stop the proliferation of golf estates for the upper classes and to bring an end to apartheid-style settlements.
A moratorium would give the housing department first preference to buy land for it to implement its vision of making poorer communities part of urban life.
Sisulu tabled the proposal at a special conference on housing in Kempton Park attended by the South African Local Government Association and provincial MECs for housing and local government.
She said SA’s chances of rooting out informal settlements by 2014 were dependent on a “multipronged housing strategy”.
The minister’s proposal has come six months after she shocked the commercial settlement development sector with a plea that at least 20% of their business should cater for the working class.
She said this would help to address the problems arising from SA’s “second economy”.
Sapoa CEO Neil Gopal said it was important that special planning was undertaken before development plans were implemented.
“I support Minister Sisulu’s approach to integrated planning, which says ‘let’s think before we act’. She is being extremely logical and rational,” he said.
He said that Sisulu’s call was in line with Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s weekend statement that proper planning and consultation had been undertaken in cities such as Shanghai, which had shown massive recent growth.
Gopal said SA had the resources and vision and needed to consult affected parties to ensure future development was for mixed use.
Government envisages the construction of medium-density housing projects within the country’s towns and cities, such as the R98m Brickfields project in Newtown, Johannesburg, which offers 650 one- to three-bedroom flats near a multicultural precinct catering to a range of income groups.
The conference agreed in principle to Sisulu’s request, but municipalities will still have to discuss the proposals as if affects a major revenue source. Most of the prime land in the metropolitan areas has been bought by the private sector for commercial and industrial property development.
Sisulu said this was the reason SA had not moved away from the apartheid-style development pattens of building low cost housing for the poor far from their places of employment.
The conference also agreed to have all municipalities set up housing divisions with properly trained staff. It undertook to clean up housing registers and to include people looking for rental stock, among other things.
While housing development has been the responsibility of provinces, the conference proposed that municipalities that have shown capacity to co-ordinate be accredited and given resources to develop integrated housing projects.
The conference also undertook to deal urgently with an estimated 200000 households staying in dangerous areas such as near railway lines, flood plains and river banks through the construction of emergency housing.