Hon Deputy Speaker and hon members, the background to the understanding of the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Bill can be found in the National Development Plan adopted by all South Africans through this House and various fora of our country as a roadmap for long- term planning and as development tool for our nation. The plan specifically commits all South Africans to work towards a minimum standard of life, as envisaged in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
The total land surface of South Africa is expected to be developed for all citizens, especially the poor, the youth, the marginal and vulnerable groups. To achieve this, government must take the lead to divert available resources and investments in partnership with all development agents, both nationally and internationally, towards the total destruction of all poverty, unemployment and inequality - the legacy of colonialism and apartheid in our country. Spatial planning and land use management for all forms of development must therefore be of a national effort by all municipalities, provincial governments, national departments and state-owned enterprises to attain developmental, equitable and efficient spatial planning across all spheres of government.
This Bill seeks to address a fragmented, unequal and incoherent spatial planning and land use management system that exists in South Africa. Attempts to legislate for a coherent and integrated planning system, through the Development Facilitation Act, Act No 67 of 1995, did not succeed because the continued existence of the old-order laws and parallel systems of land development permitted under different pieces of legislation disallowed this.
The crucial moment for the planning system in South Africa came on 18 June 2010, when the Constitutional Court pronounced on a matter of dispute between the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality and the Gauteng Development Tribunal, which was established in terms of the Development Facilitation Act. The City of Johannesburg was empowered by the Transvaal Town Planning and Township Ordinance No 15 of 1986 to deal with planning issues, whereas the Gauteng Development Tribunal was empowered by the Development Facilitation Act, Act No 67 of 1995, to do the same.
The matter was brought before the Constitutional Court to make a determination on who has the powers and mandate to determine the rezoning of land and establishment of townships. On 18 June 2010 the Constitutional Court pronounced on the invalidity of Chapters V and VI of the Development Facilitation Act, citing that the Constitution provides for a degree of autonomy for the local sphere of government, in other words that municipalities should exercise their Constitutional powers without the interference of other spheres of government.
The Supreme Court of Appeal's decision that planning in the context of municipal affairs has a particular meaning, which includes zoning of land and establishment of townships, was upheld. The powers to consider and approve applications for rezoning of land and the establishment of townships are elements of municipal planning - a function assigned to municipalities by section 156(1) of the Constitution, read with part B of Schedule 4.
The Constitutional Court ordered that the invalidity would be suspended for 24 months to allow the department to address the defects of the Development Facilitation Act, envisaging that the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Bill would have been enacted by 17 June 2012. The Portfolio Committee on Rural Development and Land Reform is confident that this Bill, that seeks to remedy the flaw, will stand the constitutional test, as the committee collectively went out of its way to consult teams of legal experts to advise on all aspects of the Bill's constitutionality.
We thank senior counsels I Jamie and J Gauntlett for the valuable advice that helped the portfolio committee to overcome potential weaknesses in the Bill. We also thank all committee members who dedicated valuable time in pursuit of quality legislation, which we believe we have achieved. We further call on all stakeholders, including all the portfolio committees that are directly affected by this Bill and have contributed on its various aspects, to support the process of law-making beyond this House.
Without necessarily sequencing in any order, the development facilitation role of government spheres, as will be expected due to their weakness at all levels, is unevenly spread. It is not going to be possible for this law to be implemented throughout the country in the same way, on the same date and within the same period.
However, we believe that the national government and the provincial spheres are expected to empower those lower spheres in the same way that the national government would capacitate these provincial governments to help local municipalities to produce spatial development frameworks and bylaws in line with the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Bill's requirements to ensure that the national government, a provincial government and a municipality participate in the spatial planning and land use management processes that impact on each other, to ensure that the plans and programmes are co-ordinated, consistent and in harmony with each other. The National Spatial Development Framework must give effect to the development principles, norms and standards set out in Chapter 2 of the Bill. It must give effect to relevant national policies, priorities, plans and legislation; co-ordinate and integrate provincial and municipal spatial development frameworks; enhance spatial co-ordination of land development and land use management activities at national level; indicate desired patterns of land use in the Republic; and take cognisance of any environmental management instrument adopted by the relevant environmental management authority.
After the Bill has been passed in the NCOP, the Minister must insist that the regulations come back to this House for us to be able to make sure that they are consistent with the law and to make sure that the implementation of this Bill does not create parallel structures. We have to make sure that no other law of the Republic, even though it may purport to be working to assist this one, will nullify this particular Bill.
The Minister must make sure that land use schemes of municipalities, working with provincial government departments, promote uniformity throughout the system, both in rural and urban areas. There has to be one South Africa for everybody, rather than a South Africa of the people in the Bantustans, townships and suburbs. We must make sure that transformation is taking place in planning in our cities and towns. What is happening out there, once we have debated these issues here, is that municipalities are still enforcing the patterns of settlement of apartheid through planning, because it is regarded as a technical tool in the hands of town planners rather than a transformatory one in the hands of citizens that must leave.
The committee has unanimously approved and agreed with this Bill. Therefore, I commend this Bill to the House. I thank you. [Applause.]