Cape Town — Mayor Helen Zille will be presented with a landmark proposal tomorrow that lists 12 key pockets of land that could be earmarked for Hout Bay residents living in overcrowded settlements.

The proposed list, revealed to the Cape Argus, includes prime tracts of land in Orange Kloof, Oudekraal, Apostle Battery above Llandudno and Constantia.

The proposal is based on a land audit that has been drawn up by a committee tasked with addressing the long-standing land row in Hout Bay which pitted well-off residents against poor settlement dwellers.

The committee comprises representatives from the Hout Bay Rate-payers Association, Cosatu, the Sinethemba Civic Association, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) and the SA National Civic Organisation (Sanco).

The proposal only identified vacant land, but does not indicate whether this land is available or to whom it belongs.

Committee organisers have said that the list is not a demand, but a proposal of options, and the city will be asked to consider the feasibility of development on the areas selected.

Most of the land under consideration is government-owned, but there are pockets of private land and a section that falls under the Table Mountain National Park.

The committee is set to tell the city that public land should be considered as the first option for housing, but private land could, in principle, be considered thereafter.

Today Zille said she was waiting for the report "with interest" but could not comment.

The committee said it appeared that there were unutilised land parcels which could be used for housing within reasonable distance of Hout Bay, provided all three tiers of government - the city, the provincial administration and the national government - co-operated in making it available.

The "vacant and underutilised" pockets of land were identified by the land audit committee, representing all parties in Hout Bay, after the city and the provincial and national governments failed to find land for the people crammed into Imizamo Yethu and Hangberg.

The land audit is seen as a milestone after years of hostility between affluent residents of Hout Bay and their poor neighbours.

Hout Bay has been a conflict zone since its ratepayers association obtained an interdict that prevented Imizamo Yethu residents building shacks or developing any other structure on a 16ha site adjacent to the township.

Now all parties have agreed that should the housing crisis be settled through implementation of the proposals, the interdict would fall away.

In January, Cosatu regional secretary Tony Ehrenreich called for land grabs, encouraging people who lived in Hout Bay's informal settlements to "stake their claims" and kick those living on "large farms" off their land.

But at a historic meeting on Tuesday, residents of both the affluent and poor parts of Hout Bay welcomed the document, presented by committee and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, which is in the form of a draft proposal to the city.

The document also detailed the type of development envisaged, how the list of beneficiaries would be drawn up and how residents were to be moved if Imizamo Yethu and Hangberg were to be upgraded.

The founder of Envirochild, Johnny Anderton, said development on any land released would provide an "integrated and sustainable mixed-use settlement that would include social, commercial and environmental facets".

Once houses had been built, the committee would seek help from the city with an inclusive and authentic housing beneficiary list - recognising that a window period would be required for public response and discussion of the list.

Anderton, a land audit committee member, said the concept of a "mixed-use sustainable development" was derived from villages in Norway, where people had lived harmoniously for more than two decades.

Councillor Dan Plato, mayoral committee member for housing, has assured residents that the city is prepared to approve funding for Imizamo Yethu and Hangberg.

However, he warned that there were 222 informal settlements around Cape Town and Imizamo Yethu was "not on top of the City's priority list, but at number 27".

Under the proposal the working committee will appoint a monitoring team - with experience, capacity and skills - to develop and execute agreed plans.

Once the proposal has been submitted to the city, timeframes will be agreed by all parties in consultation with the monitoring committee on August 1 - paving the way for construction in 2008.