Value capture instruments are widely considered to be beneficial fiscal planning mechanisms, even though they are difficult to implement. Colombia is notable in Latin America for its unique and long-standing experience with institutionalizing value capture through collecting the Contribución de Valorización, a kind of special assessment, and the Contribución de Desarrollo Municipal (Law 9 of 1989), which preceded the current instrument, Participación en Plusvalías.

Since 1921 when the first such legislation was introduced, Colombia has developed a fiscal culture in which people are aware of and accept value capture instruments as a legitimate revenue-raising mechanism. For example, in 1968, at the height of its use, the Contribución de Valorización accounted for 16 percent of local revenues in Bogotá and about 45 percent in Medellín; in the early 1980s it raised about 30 percent of total revenues in Cali. Nevertheless, because land still plays an important role as a hedge against inflation in places like Colombia, where capital markets are not highly developed, the implementation of such devices still meets with strong political resistance from many constituencies, ranging from powerful landowners and developers to low- and moderate-income families for whom land is an important source of personal savings.

Building on this experience, Law 388 of 1997 creating Participación en Plusvalías decrees that all municipalities must design and approve a ten-year master plan (Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial-POT) and adopt plusvalías as one of the plan’s main sources of income. The revenues raised through plusvalías are to be used primarily for the provision of social housing and infrastructure in under-served neighborhoods, as well as for public works of general interest. The law establishes three administrative conditions for applying the plusvalías instrument as part of the POT:

1. when land changes from one category to another, especially when rural land with low development potential is included within the master plan’s growth boundary and therefore becomes designated as land for urban expansion or as suburban land;

2. when additional development (density) rights are authorized in an area; or

3. when an area changes use, especially from residential to commercial use.

The Participación en Plusvalías is grounded in the legitimate public right to participate in capturing land value increments resulting from administrative actions such as changes in zoning or density that may generate substantial windfalls for the landowner. It is important to note that this instrument is not a tax, a contribution or a fee, but rather a mandated right of the public to ‘participate’ in the value generated by government functions aimed at enhancing urban development. Law 388 and its accompanying decrees define the general parameters for using plusvalías, but the municipalities are required to determine its specific procedures. However, many mayors and other public officials are concerned about the law’s ambiguities and are struggling with the process of applying both the law and the plusvalías instrument.

To address the need for a forum in which public officials and other experts could discuss this problem, the Lincoln Institute and the Bogotá Planning Department held a seminar in December 1999, before the deadline for approval of the legal master plan (POT) on December 31. The seminar convened practitioners actively involved in the implementation process, including planning directors from major cities, representatives of national public agencies and ministries, representatives of institutions in charge of property assessments, lawyers, and scholars involved in the design of the instrument. One immediate outcome of the seminar was a successful lobbying effort to change the deadline to June 30, 2000, to allow more time to review and revise the problematic POT provisions.

Key Implementation Issues

Application of plusvalías to different situations. Most municipal representatives at the seminar agreed that plusvalías should be used only in those situations that result in a clear and substantial windfall, in order to generate greater citizen approval and a simpler administrative process during the first phase of implementation. The general consensus is that Contribución de Valorización has been accepted because the increase in the value of land that benefited from public investment was clearly understood by the owners, so they have been willing to pay the fee. In Bogotá, for example, Contribución de Valorización has been one of the major means for building new streets since 1969.

By comparison, plusvalías are applied only to situations in which a higher land value is specifically associated with a public land use decision defined in the POT, such as changing the land category, its density or its use. Extending the growth boundary to include rural land that can be developed in subsequent years is an explicit situation in which the change in land price is evident. Most representatives of municipalities felt this was the most obvious scenario for application and should be the main focus of the instrument in its first phase.

Accuracy of land value assessments.

Law 388 suggests that the date for the base land price against which the gain is measured is to be July 1997, the date when Congress approved the law. However, it is not clear whether and how the municipalities can determine that land price in subsequent years. The problem is that the initial base value to be compared to the current value may already be influenced by ‘rumors’ circulating about land designations in the master plans. Should the value be calculated before the rumors of urbanistic changes begin to circulate, or just before the actual decision is made? How should cities treat land value increments generated by actions occurring between that base date and the approval of the POT? For how long is the assessment valid? What happens after, say, 15 or 20 years?

These questions are all the more relevant considering that land use norms established recently in some cities have already been capitalized in land prices, thus reducing substantially the current margins for the application of Participación en Plusvalías.

Furthermore, there are different legal implications about which relevant values should be considered (i.e., current use vs. highest and best use). Should the land value increment be based on the potential or the actual value? Should the legally defined formula for assessments apply to the potential buildable area even if the builder is not requesting a license to develop the site to its full allowable density? What happens when a property that has been assessed on a certain date is not completed? Although the law defines the concept of zones with similar geo-economic characteristics, it is not clear whether the landowner may legally request the assessment to be done on a property-by-property basis or on the basis of homogeneous zones.

The short deadlines established by the law for calculating both commercial prices before the master plan and new reference prices after adoption of the plan also cause serious concerns. For example, the law states that the mayor has only five days after the new POT is approved to determine new prices in the affected areas, and that all calculations must be accomplished within the next 60 days. The legal structure for adopting simplified cost procedures to allow assessments for homogeneous areas of the city rather than for individual plots is not clear on this point.

Definition of land categories.

Differences in land categories between Law 9 of 1989 and Law 388 of 1997 have led to questions of applicability. Law 9 included a suburban land category that could be developed at moderate densities on the outskirts of cities. For example, all of the developable land to the north of Bogotá is now in that suburban category, which permits residential densities of 160 inhabitants per hectare. The zoning proposed by the new master plan permits an increase to between 180 and 220 inhabitants per hectare. Law 388 states that the change from rural to urban use may be taxed, but does not address the suburban category, even though suburban land already has strong development rights. Because of these difficulties, many cities prefer to treat suburban land as similar to urban land in order to avoid further implementation problems.

Exemptions and special cases.

Land for low-income housing is exempted from plusvalías, but the law states that the land value increments must be calculated anyway. This may constitute an unnecessary additional cost, considering that 80 percent of all housing to be built in Bogotá within the next ten years will be low-income housing. How does this affect the fairness of this instrument on the remaining 20 percent of housing? How effective will plusvalías be as a planning instrument seeking to decrease speculation on land designated for social housing?

Another issue deals with wipeouts resulting from master plan designation of conservation zones or areas set aside for environmental protection through transfer of development rights (TDRs). Complaints from private agents of ‘takings’ against their full rights of ownership raise important questions of compensation. Areas that already have been designated for high-density development but are not yet fully built also raise questions about the expectation component of land values.

Political and operational obstacles.

A continuing source of confusion and misunderstanding concerns the technical issues associated with the effective calculation of the land value increment. Can it or should it be implemented in cases when, due to general economic recession, all land values are allegedly declining? If landowners are either selling land at a loss or not initiating development on their properties at all, then, quite simply, no plusvalías would be available to the local administration. Theoretically, all that is needed is to distinguish generating effects (administrative actions) from trends in land markets. In practice, however, it is easy to understand that instruments of value capture are more robust, and more palatable politically, during the upswing of land price cycles than the downswing, as is currently the case in Colombia.

The political overtones of this issue become clearer when considering the substantial land portfolios that developers normally hold for strategic planning motives, including for speculation. In effect, urban planners are hard pressed to be more flexible, if not magnanimous, in relaxing urbanistic norms and regulations in order to motivate developers during times of recession. However, this kind of pressure from developers may be simply an attempt to gain compensation for poor investment decisions in the past.

Sometimes developers complain that the municipality is setting the plusvalías fee too high in times of declining prices when recession may create disincentives for future investments in building improvements. However, a counter-argument based on the experience with Contribución de Valorización suggests that if the amount of plusvalías on the changing land use is considered to be overvalued, it follows that the change is probably not cost-effective and should not be proposed. It is also possible that a mistake was made in the feasibility study or the calculations.

Over and above these practical difficulties are certain implementation requirements in the law that affect its operation, such as the need to directly notify the landowner that the property is ‘liable’ for plusvalías. Should the burden reside with the public administration or with the owner? Similarly, there are legal difficulties surrounding the moment when plusvalías should be charged to the property owner, as in the liquidation of properties or in the request for a license to change the use of land. Some grounds for complaints of double taxation could also be raised if an area to be densified (or receive any change in zoning) has received additional infrastructure on which the Contribuición de Valorización provision was charged. The independence of this instrument from plusvalías, as stated by the new law, is important because of the existing option of calculating and charging the plusvalías for public works designated by the POT.

Adjustments Proposed by Municipal Officials

Public officials at the December seminar in Bogotá suggested a few ways to simplify the implementation of Law 388 by sacrificing precision in the calculation of the plusvalías in favor of expediency, transparency and compliance. This perspective is based on the belief that political will may be more important than technical consistency, at least in the early, transitional stages of implementation, in order to improve the chances of long-term success. A very telling and useful example was given by officials from the city of Cartagena (500,000 inhabitants), which has been applying the Contribución de Desarrollo Municipal effectively since 1992. Their experience shows that the effect of density changes to a new lot should be similar with regard to the generation of plusvalías to the rate generated by the same kind of density change already observed in a different but comparable area of the city.

Participants also proposed restricting the application of plusvalías to the more strategic and dynamic areas of the city where the windfall potential is most apparent and expressive, rather than in areas where the land value increments are small. Furthermore, assessment of plusvalías should be based on homogeneous zones, not on individual plots. The plusvalías instrument also needs to be developed and phased in over time as the municipalities gain greater knowledge and sophistication in valuation and assessment techniques. The established nine-year period for the validation of the assessments of land value increments, therefore, should be subject to more frequent periodic review. Some practical transition rules, absent in the original formulation of the law, also will help facilitate the introduction of a new fiscal system.

Other suggestions were made regarding the adoption of master plans (POTs). Municipalities should use these plans, rather than some other valuation mechanism external to the POT, to identify areas where there will be a change in land use in order to determine whether, in fact, it is a higher use and thus subject to an increase in plusvalías. Before adopting the POT, the municipalities should identify such areas so the valuation and assessment techniques could be worked out ahead of time and the sense of uncertainty could be mitigated. Some participants even suggested using the POT to define the relevant ex-ante situation (or prior value) to determine the net land value increment.

In general, the participants agreed that the concept and aims of the master plan and plusvalías instruments are both acceptable and desirable. Many of the problems and issues discussed at the seminar and throughout the country pertain to the implementation of any value capture scheme, or any new fiscal or normative legislation for that matter. In this case there is certainly substantial room for improving the design of the implementation procedures, since changes to operational aspects are always easier to achieve than changes to the law itself. But, over and above the remaining formal difficulties, it has been clearly demonstrated that political will, accumulated technical expertise and the ethical commitment of the participants are all critical to perfecting this land policy instrument and implementing the highly commendable principles that inspire it.

Carolina Barco de Botero is the planning director for the city of Bogotá. She is also a managing consultant with Ciudades, Ltda. in Bogotá and a member of the Lincoln Institute Board of Directors. Martim Smolka is senior fellow and director of the Institute’s Latin America and Caribbean Program.

Fernanda Furtado, a fellow of the Lincoln Institute, also contributed to this article. She recently completed her Ph.D. thesis (in Portuguese) on value capture in Latin America, at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. One of her thesis chapters describes the situation in Colombia.

Pros and Cons of Participación en Plusvalías

Pros

• reduces corruption insofar as it exposes benefits that used to be negotiated under the table;
• reduces speculation;
• generates public revenues that are designated for redistributive purposes;
• reduces distortions in the distribution of urban land value increments;
• contributes to a better understanding of fiscal culture, thereby improving the collection of other assessments and taxes.

Cons

• introduces more red tape into the implementation of master plans and the process of licensing development of the built environment;
• legitimizes private appropriation of land value increments, since it leaves 50 to 70 percent of the plusvalías with the owner;
• incurs high administrative costs compared to the revenues it generates.

Changes in the global economy, telecommunications and transportation systems are causing cities throughout the world to look at large-scale development projects as a way to restructure land uses and stimulate the local economy. For example, large, well-located areas previously occupied by railroad facilities and related transportation and industrial uses have been left abandoned in many mid-sized cities as more goods are now shipped in containers from a small number of major ports and terminals.

Statutory restrictions on state-owned enterprises have limited options to release these underutilized lands to the private market or to develop them as public projects. With increased privatization and the removal of restrictions, these properties would appear to be ideal locations for successful public/private development partnerships. However, while such monumental urban developments may seem like a panacea, they also raise many concerns about implementation and unanticipated impacts on other neighborhoods of the city, as well as competition with other cities.

Cordoba is representative of cities engaged in strategic planning to restructure local land uses under conditions of a changing macroeconomic and institutional environment. One of the key questions for these cities is to what extent can a major new development, in this case a teleport, effectively stimulate economic diversity and revitalize a neglected area.

Conditions in Cordoba

The City of Cordoba, with a population of approximately 1.3 million people, is strategically located in the geographic center of Argentina and has well-established linkages to the capital of Buenos Aires and to major cities in Chile, Brazil and Uruguay. Cordoba has long been an industrial center focusing on the production of cars, planes, trains and machinery, as well as consumer goods such as food, shoes, clothing and leather products. More recently, the city has expanded its service sector for both local and regional needs.

As Argentina has experienced economic stabilization and restructuring of its economy, Cordoba has gained greater potential to become a thriving center of Mercosur, the regional business district of south central South America. However, one of the city’s most vexing obstacles remains its competition with Buenos Aires.

Like many Latin American cities, Cordoba is also experiencing increased decentralization, movement toward a polycentric urban structure, and related socio-economic problems. Several years ago the city embarked on a strategic planning process that involved a broad cross-section of constituencies and resulted in a 1996 plan that identified some immediate economic development needs and other matters requiring further analysis and implementation.

As part of an ongoing collaboration between city officials and the Lincoln Institute, a seminar held in Cordoba in April 1997 examined the regulation and promotion of the land market. (1) One high-priority idea that emerged from those discussions related to the development of a teleport on underutilized central-city land. A committee formed to address the planning and implementation of such a facility included municipal officials, private sector business interests and members of the local university community.

The teleport envisioned for Cordoba is a mixed-use development comprising office space, convention facilities and hotels along with other ancillary land uses. The provision of state-of-the-art office facilities is considered a key objective to meet the city’s needs as both a regional center and a national location for some firms. These facilities will have elaborate telecommunications infrastructure and will be developed with a combination of public and private sector investment. One of the first projects is to be a hotel developed by the municipality within an historic structure.

The proposed location for the teleport is a 40-hectare site in the center of the city adjacent to the Suquia River. The site includes old railway lines and has good access to major roads linking the Mercosur region. The land is currently in both public and private ownership, and it is anticipated that some land transfers will be required to undertake the project.

Observations and Recommendations

To help the committee finalize its plans for the teleport, the city of Cordoba and the Lincoln Institute organized a second seminar in April 1998 to discuss concerns about implementation of the project. Comparative case studies of large-scale public/private developments in Toronto, Canada, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, provided useful perspectives on the problems and challenges faced by those cities and offered lessons for examining the design and likely prospects for the proposed teleport.

A key consideration is the teleport’s large scale relative to the existing local market, which suggests, at the very least, that the project needs to be phased in to ensure orderly development. Related to the project’s size are its impacts on other land in the city, including sites that have the potential for similar types of development. The relative attractiveness of the chosen site may adversely affect development of non-residential land uses in other designated growth areas of the city. At the same time, it is important to understand the depth and strength of the market for the specific uses intended for the proposed teleport site.

A related concern is the project’s potential negative impacts on existing and expanding residential neighborhoods in the area. On the other hand, the success of the teleport development could benefit the neighborhood if the residents are integrated into the planning and implementation process.

Among the lessons to be learned from other cities’ experience is the value of having a manageable set of objectives, and some seminar participants feared that the Cordoba committee was being overly ambitious. A second lesson regards the need for extreme care in selecting the location for a major new development. While the target location for the teleport was not considered deficient in any specific respect, it had not been selected as the result of a systematic analysis. Rather, this is a case where the city is trying to take advantage of an opportunity to develop a plan for an available site that urgently calls for reuse.

A third admonition came from the private sector, which has special needs in terms of access, infrastructure and costs. Some qualified market research can shed light on a host of issues including the extent to which Cordoba could hope to compete with Buenos Aires as a local or regional headquarters for domestic or international firms. Clearly the intended private sector beneficiaries must be involved directly in the conceptual development and planning of the project.

Several weeks after the seminar, the city commissioned a study to aid the implementation strategy for the teleport based on these concerns and recommendations. The study will also investigate potential instruments to effect land value capture to provide infrastructure financing and mechanisms to structure the kinds of public/private partnerships that appear to be necessary for the success of the teleport project.

A final general observation is that officials in Cordoba, or any city considering large-scale urban development, need to move rapidly beyond the study phase and establish training and other support systems for local leaders and practitioners to enhance their capacity to manage the project. Skills and experience are needed to assess the functioning of land markets, develop requisite technical capabilities, negotiate with the private sector, and oversee financial management, utility regulation, property taxation, land regulations and their complex interactions. The challenge in any such undertaking is to balance sufficient planning and research with the need to take advantage of development opportunities as they arise and to learn from the process as it evolves.

David Amborski is professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto. Douglas Keare, a senior fellow of the Lincoln Institute, has experience with strategic planning for large cities in developing countries.

1. See “Strategic Planning in Cordoba,” Douglas Keare and Ricardo Vanella, Land Lines, September 1997.

Figure 1: Questions for Large-scale Developments

These topics and questions guided the seminar discussions in Cordoba, and they may be useful to other cities considering large-scale development projects on underutilized urban lands.

Understanding the Land Market: How will the local land market respond to large-scale public interventions such as the proposed teleport? What is the demand capacity for state-of-the-art office buildings in the region? What are the potential mechanisms for intervening in the land market to enhance the chances of success for this type of project?

The Urban Impacts of Large Projects on Underutilized Land: What are the impacts of this type of large-scale project on adjacent lands and competitive locations within the metropolitan area? How can infrastructure use be optimized? What alternatives could be explored to change the existing zoning structure?

Instruments of Promoting and Financing Private Investments in Urban Regeneration Projects: What financial instruments can be used in this type of development in conjunction with private sector participation? What instruments for private investments have been most successful? How can these be used with public/private partnerships? What benefits, disadvantages or complications might result from these partnerships?

Mechanisms of Redistribution and Land Value Capture: How can incremental land value be identified and estimated? How can land value capture schemes be used up front to finance the infrastructure for this project? What alternative instruments may be used for this purpose? What institutional reforms or partnerships might be necessary to implement these schemes and to serve as incentives for further development?

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 6 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

Preguntas y respuestas con Mario Coyula

P: ¿A qué se debe la reputación que tiene La Habana por sus hermosos edificios y barrios antiguos?

R: Hace más de doscientos años La Habana era la ciudad más destacada del Golfo de México y la cuenca del Caribe. Establecida como un asentamiento de servicios de la colonia española, la ciudad fue extendiéndose hacia el oeste y el suroeste desde su emplazamiento inicial próximo al puerto, y fue dejando tras de sí un valioso legado en edificaciones que han representado numerosos y variados estilos arquitectónicos durante más de cuatro siglos.

El talante histórico de La Habana perdura tanto por accidente como por diseño: Por accidente porque la revolución de 1959 súbitamente detuvo la marcha de un proceso de substitución de hermosos edificios antiguos por condominios de gran altura; por diseño porque una meta inicial del nuevo gobierno era reducir la pobreza rural y mejorar las condiciones de vida en el campo y en las ciudades pequeñas y los pueblos. Como consecuencia de esto, La Habana se deterioró más, pero la meta de población quedó interrumpida y la ciudad escapó al destino de una dramática renovación urbana y de un desarrollo especulativo de los bienes raíces.

P: ¿Cuáles son las dos caras de La Habana a las que hace referencia el título de su próximo libro, Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis?

R: Cada ciudad tiene como mínimo dos caras, según el sesgo social, cultural y político del observador. En La Habana vivía mucha gente bastante adinerada y también mucha gente pobre. Algunas personas dirán que La Habana prerrevolucionaria era una ciudad maravillosa y llena de encanto, un lugar ideal para vivir hasta que llegó el comunismo. Otros la recordarán como un sitio agobiado por la pobreza, la discriminación y la injusticia social; creen que la revolución brindó las mismas oportunidades para todos.

Algunos dirán que La Habana actual está a punto de derrumbarse debido a la falta de mantenimiento y que se ve apagada debido a la carencia de servicios y opciones. Otros señalarán que por esta causa la arquitectura única de La Habana no sufrió los efectos del redesarrollo. Es posible que haya hacinamiento en los centros urbanos, pero la gente no ha sido desplazada a causa de la regeneración urbana. En cada caso, ambos fenómenos suceden simultáneamente. Tal vez es esto lo que hace que La Habana sea tan fascinante.

P: ¿Cuál es la misión del Grupo para el Desarrollo de la Capital?

R: El Grupo se creó en 1987 como un equipo interdisciplinario de expertos con la finalidad de asesorar al gobierno municipal en materia de políticas urbanas. Nuestra misión es darle el mismo peso al desarrollo económico y al desarrollo social de la ciudad, con énfasis en la participación activa de sus habitantes. La preservación del vasto patrimonio arquitectónico de La Habana representa una fuga impensable de fondos públicos en un momento en que la economía cubana atraviesa graves dificultades. No obstante, la inversión es un factor crítico para reafirmar el papel principal de La Habana en la región y para crear un entorno urbano capaz de estimular el crecimiento económico y mejorar la calidad de vida de la población.

Las nuevas inversiones deberían alentar a los habitantes a identificar y resolver sus propios problemas, y es indispensable supervisar el avance logrado para evitar los efectos negativos sobre el medio ambiente natural, así como en la estructura social y arquitectónica. La planificación del cambio en La Habana exige un patrón de desarrollo que sea económicamente factible, ambientalmente estable, socialmente justo y políticamente participativo. Queremos trabajar con inversionistas que entiendan y respeten la comunidad, para ayudar a crear una identidad social y una participación comunitaria mediante la mejora de los aspectos materiales, tales como vivienda, transporte, educación y salud.

P: ¿Cuál es la función de los talleres integrales de transformación del barrio organizados por el Grupo?

R: Son organizaciones de residentes de los barrios, asesorados y estimulados por arquitectos, trabajadores sociales, planificadores e ingenieros. Para cada grupo tratamos de encontrar profesionales que realmente vivan de forma permanente en el mismo barrio. Los grupos escogen y dirigen la recuperación, construcción de viviendas, recreación y otros proyectos económicos y sociales, según la visión y prioridades que tengan para el desarrollo comunitario en sus barrios específicos.

Algunos talleres han escogido dedicarse a la fabricación de materiales de construcción, incluso el reciclaje de escombros (¡materia prima abundante en La Habana!); utilizan estos materiales en sus propios proyectos y también los venden a otros grupos. Otros talleres de los barrios han decidido enfocarse en los jardines urbanos populares o el reciclaje de desechos. Lo que es más importante, estos talleres fomentan la independencia y el compromiso de los habitantes, lo cual despierta un sentimiento local de orgullo que ayuda a combatir la marginalidad.

P: ¿Qué funciones respectivas cumplen el gobierno central y los barrios en la recuperación de La Habana?

R: El gobierno central ha tenido dificultad para satisfacer las necesidades de los barrios, especialmente desde el desplome de la Unión Soviética. En una época el combustible, los alimentos y el transporte eran suministrados y controlados centralmente, o incluso eran importados. Los ciudadanos se acostumbraron a esperar que un gobierno bondadoso se ocupara de ellos, desde arriba hacia abajo. Ahora uno de los desafíos más grandes que tenemos es impulsar y habilitar a los ciudadanos para que ellos mismos obtengan esas cosas localmente, desde abajo hacia arriba. Por ejemplo, el gobierno ha autorizado la creación de decenas de miles de huertos comunitarios pequeños en terrenos baldíos, y el excedente se vende en los mercados municipales.

P: ¿Cuáles son las ventajas y desventajas del desarrollo del turismo en La Habana?

R: Por un lado, el turismo puede atraer nuevas inversiones e ingresos que ayudarán a mejorar las condiciones de vida de los habitantes de la ciudad. Por el otro, la construcción a gran escala destinada sólo a los turistas puede trastornar el conjunto de edificaciones locales y hacer que los cubanos miren a los turistas no como seres humanos semejantes, sino como un mero recurso económico, casi de la misma manera en que el hombre hambriento de la vieja película de Charlie Chaplin veía a cada persona a su alrededor como un pollo asado o un delicioso postre.

Sería preferible atraer muchos inversionistas pequeños en vez de unos pocos grandes y encontrar formas de reutilizar las antiguas quintas de la ciudad como hoteles pequeños. De esa manera podremos manejar con más eficacia las ventajas y los riesgos del turismo y distribuir los beneficios y los costos con mayor uniformidad entre los barrios.

Este patrón debería ser más sostenible y menos vulnerable en un entorno exterior desfavorable, incluso con el bloqueo de los Estados Unidos.

P: El Grupo ha diseñado una maqueta a gran escala de La Habana. ¿Cómo la usan?

R: Utilizamos la maqueta como una herramienta educativa para ayudar a la gente a ver la ciudad como un solo conjunto y a situar el barrio dentro de ese conjunto. Dado que los edificios están clasificados por colores según el período en que fueron construidos, la maqueta también ayuda a la gente a ver cómo ha crecido la ciudad y cómo las edificaciones más recientes han sustituido o arrollado las más antiguas. La maqueta se construyó en una escala 1:1000 y actualmente cubre 112 metros cuadrados. Está en exhibición en un pabellón construido específicamente para ese propósito y que sirve de centro de información para los habitantes y visitantes de la ciudad.

Asimismo usamos la maqueta para evaluar el impacto visual de nuevos proyectos. Al colocar los edificios nuevos en los emplazamientos propuestos, ayudamos a la gente a obtener más información sobre las distintas opciones y oportunidades. Tan es así que este proceso ha puesto freno a ciertos proyectos inapropiados y disruptivos porque todos los participantes –planificadores, urbanistas, residentes del barrio- pudieron ver con claridad la forma cómo una nueva estructura afectaría la comunidad.

Nota del editor: En abril, el arquitecto y planificador Mario Coyula visitó el Instituto Lincoln, la Escuela de Posgrado en Diseño de la Universidad de Harvard y la Escuela de Administración Pública Kennedy para dar charlas sobre la historia y arquitectura de La Habana, su ciudad natal. Se ha desempeñado como profesor de tiempo completo en la Facultad de Arquitectura de La Habana desde 1964 y es el subdirector del Grupo para el Desarrollo Integral de la Capital (GDIC). El Dr. Coyula además es integrante de varias comisiones, consejos científicos y consejos consultivos. Es coautor del libro de próxima circulación titulado Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis (Nueva York y Londres: John Wiley and Sons, 1997) junto con Roberto Segre y Joseph L. Scarpaci Jr.

Global investment, sophisticated communications, and widespread corporate and personal mobility are transforming city regions around the world. Those who focus on urban issues have been arguing for many years that we are seeing the emergence of a new kind of human settlement, with its own distinct social and economic structures and associated physical forms.

The Lincoln Institute’s 1995 Cambridge Conference in September focused on these global forces. The consortium was organized by three research investigators—David Barkin, Gary Hack and Roger Simmonds—to study 12 city regions spread across Europe, Asia and the Americas. While each city offers unique characteristics and exceptions to certain patterns, they all meet the following measurable criteria:

• a large population, but not necessarily megacity stature;
• a diversified market economy, rather than a command economy or one dominated by a single industry;
• distinct patterns of growth and change since 1960; and
• a record of attempts by their governments to shape regional form, whether successful or not.

12 Case Study Cities

• Ankara, Turkey
• Bangkok, Thailand
• Jakarta, Indonesia
• Lyon, France
• Madrid, Spain
• Randstad, The Netherlands
• San Diego, USA
• Santiago, Chile
• Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Taipei, Taiwan
• Tokyo, Japan
• Toronto, Canada

Using the 12 sites as case studies, the researchers outlined several levels of investigation to assemble a picture of what global city regions look like and why. First, they examined the effects of the global political economy on the growth and development of cities over time. For example, how have the loss of traditional agricultural or industrial economies and the introduction of new players with investment capital changed the ways cities work? How have cities attempted to position themselves in relation to these powerful external forces?

Another research goal was to understand the relationships between changing urban form and regional infrastructure investments, such as transportation systems and new technology centers. How have populations dispersed around new transportation networks and economic centers? How can regional planning efforts influence changes in spatial form and impacts on the environment?

Third, the researchers explored changes in the quality of urban life resulting from the dynamics of globalization. What social and economic problems do urban residents face today? How are their local and national governments attempting to manage these problems?

Prior to the conference, research teams in each of the city regions gathered data to chart the growth and movement of their populations, infrastructure changes, and economic and industrial development over the last three decades. To make the data comparable across national boundaries, they mapped the physical evolution of the 12 city regions in 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990, and then linked these maps to changes in key economic and social indicators over the same period. Each team also prepared a report on what special issues its government is facing, and how policymakers are attempting to shape the region’s changing spatial form.

A Portrait of Global City Regions

The 12 city regions represented at the conference illustrate substantial variation, but also many common patterns of growth and change. They range in size from about 2 million in Lyon to more than 32 million in Tokyo, the world’s largest city and also one of the wealthiest.

In all of these cities, the predominant pattern of physical growth has been sprawling out from the historic center and adjacent inner ring of development into increasingly distant open space and agricultural land. This dispersal involves both residential and commercial development, though sometimes in different directions. It has been facilitated by sharp increases in the availability and use of automobiles throughout the world. The most dramatic example is Taipei, where the number of autos increased from about 11,000 in 1960 to over 1 million in 1990; the number of persons per auto decreased from 127 to 5 over that period. Ankara and Santiago, at 13 people per auto in 1990, have been the least affected by auto-mania to date.

Even as most cities are spreading out, some inner cores have become more densely populated as wealthier residents and service sector employment have migrated into newly thriving downtowns. Monumental stadiums, convention centers, luxury hotels and residential condominiums have helped to promote tourism and an active cultural life in these central cores. The flip side, however, is increased decay outside the center, as large numbers of poor people are dispersed into areas where public services are often lacking.

The disadvantaged inner cities and wealthy, low-density suburbs of the United States are notable exceptions to this pattern. Cities such as Bangkok and Taipei demonstrate more neighborhood integration of rich and poor than others, but the predominant pattern still shows segmented pockets of wealth and poverty becoming more clearly defined over time.

In the new era of globalization, ironically, patterns of residence are becoming less important than patterns of interaction, as people who participate in the global economy communicate more often with their peers in other cities or countries, electronically or in person, than with people living next door.

Changing demographic patterns have generally slowed urban growth rates to around 3 percent compared to 6 to 8 percent in the 1960s. Most cities have seen decreases in both birth rates and migration from rural areas within the country or immediate region. But political upheavals and changing employment opportunities are also triggering new waves of transnational migration. Many of these newer immigrants settle in their own sections of the city, apart from the indigenous low-income sector, and present a different set of social and economic problems for national and local governments. In San Diego, for example, immigrants from Mexico and Central America contribute to both population growth and increased segmentation within the region. Sao Paulo, on the other hand, has experienced net outmigration as Brazilian policies and programs now encourage decentralization to new communities throughout that vast country.

The composition of economic sectors is quite consistent across countries according to the 1990 data. It generally shows less than 5 percent of the workforce employed in agriculture and resource extraction, 20 to 30 percent in manufacturing and 65 to 75 percent in the service sector. Some interesting exceptions in employment trends are Jakarta, with an agriculture sector rate of almost 16 percent in 1990, and San Diego, with a current service sector share of 83 percent. Bangkok and Taipei show the largest decreases in agriculture, from around 20 percent in 1960 to less than 2 percent in 1990, and both cities remain relatively high in manufacturing in 1990 at 32 and 36 percent respectively.

Income distribution also shows similar patterns across regions, with the bottom 20 percent of the population generally receiving only 5 to 7 percent of total earned income while the top 20 percent of the population earned 40 to 50 percent of income. Santiago, Sao Paulo and Jakarta show the greatest concentrations of wealth at the upper levels, while Tokyo and Taipei, closely followed by Randstad and Madrid, have the least inequality across income levels. San Diego, while relatively high in per capita income, has a mid-range income distribution of 44 percent at the upper end but shows only 4 percent of income earned by the poorest 20 percent of its population.

Contradictions in the Changing Global Economy

Discussion at the conference revealed several new realities about the world in which we live. Perhaps the most important is the difficulty that local and national authorities face in designing effective policies for social and political action to modify the powerful economic forces that are shaping new productive structures in their regions.

A recurrent theme in the regional analyses was the contradiction between highly centralized private investment and sweeping changes resulting from the insertion of the city region into the international economy. In most regions, “elite corridors” of globalization contrast sharply with the disadvantaged “residual city.” These wealthy enclaves accommodate the investments of transnational corporations producing for world markets and are near the residential and shopping areas of those who participate in this economy. In these financial and commercial centers, burgeoning bureaucracies of skilled professionals manage global production and marketing to assure attractive returns to international investors, often ignoring crises in the local economy.

While overall population growth has declined, remunerative employment opportunities have also ceased to grow. Every one of the city regions reported an accelerated shift of its labor force toward poorly paid, part-time jobs in the service sector, with a concomitant imbalance of economic opportunities that condemns a growing proportion of the people to poverty.

This menace is accompanied by shifts in the agricultural sector. Substantial numbers of small-scale rural producers are unable to compete in international markets with large-scale farmers elsewhere who have access to capital for the latest technologies to increase their output. The inexorable process of global expansion is also driving small and medium-scale manufacturing plants from the marketplace.

Most participants at the conference accepted and heartily embraced the new dynamic of globalization. Their governments are working actively to reposition their regions to attract foreign enterprises and real estate developers that promise modernization. They hope to convert their cities into beacons, leading their nations in the worldwide process of integration. Most see their primary task as clearing away the web of regulatory and other obstacles of previous eras, facilitating private initiative by offering (sometimes for free) the land and infrastructure required for new installations.

Many of the cities are targeting their infrastructure investment strategies specifically to expand the service economy. Bangkok, Taipei and Tokyo are working hard to become financial centers for Asia, betting on the demise of Hong Kong as a key competitor. Bangkok in particular is investing in substantial transportation and communications networks and in the education of its labor force to keep pace. In Europe, Madrid is using its role as the world’s center of Spanish culture to enhance its communications services; Randstad is promoting its airport support facilities; and Lyon is becoming an innovative center for emerging technological industries.

Impacts on Regional Development

The case studies and discussions at the conference also identified numerous problems emerging from this enthusiasm for globalization. The complex and disturbing phenomenon of urban sprawl is becoming universal as increased automobile use distributes populations to satellite employment centers and generally reduces the density of regional cities. Two interesting exceptions are Tokyo, whose extensive mass transit system helps to keep economic activity centralized, and Taipei, where mountainous geography constrains outward development. In Randstad, on the other hand, development is rapidly filling in lowland gaps between formerly freestanding settlements, even though the overall growth rate has been quite slow.

Some of this decentralization has been promoted by government efforts to deal with high land prices, traffic congestion or environmental protection. New towns or “science cities” are being built on the outskirts of Santiago, Lyon, Randstad, Taipei, Tokyo and Jakarta, and in Bangkok intensive infrastructure development is creating a new port miles from the city center. In Sao Paulo, strict regulations to protect watershed areas are pushing new development to distant sites.

Generally infrastructure follows development rather than truly shaping it. Private investors are able to respond more quickly to planned growth intentions within their regions than are the public agencies responsible for implementing major infrastructure projects. Thus, private development puts pressure on the public sector to provide services to areas that are already undergoing urbanization. This process has serious implications for long-term regional planning if it continues to be development driven with government playing catch-up.

Another theme that emerged during the conference was an increased consciousness about environmental problems. The accumulation of wealth and the accompanying increase in consumption in most city regions, is creating intense pressures on the environment. With regional integration proceeding apace and deregulation of the economy the order of the day, transnational corporations have great freedom to operate as they wish in the international economy. The participants repeatedly raised the difficulties of confronting these challenges constructively in each of their city regions. Yet, concern for the environment was also seen as the primary motivating factor for undertaking strategic regional planning.

Quality of Life Issues

Globalization offers the promise of greater prosperity. Most cities represented at the conference reported a relative increase in several quality-of-life averages between 1960 and 1990: per capita income, life expectancy and education level. These rising incomes, combined with technological advances that enhance productivity and the wider dissemination of information about goods available in world markets, have allowed city dwellers everywhere to make new choices about their consumer needs. However, powerful global models of organization and production are also imposing new, homogenized consumption patterns that threaten to stifle the extraordinary variety of lifestyles that characterizes most urban regions.

Increased physical mobility, largely achieved through the private ownership of automobiles, has provided many people with more choices about where to live, shop and work. At the same time, commuting times average 45 minutes, ranging from less than 30 minutes in San Diego to more than one and a half hours in Bangkok.

Conference participants agreed that this increased mobility had undermined a previous sense of community, as individuals begin to identify with increasingly dispersed urban places or develop identities that are not based on place at all. The “McDonald’s-ization” of world culture, including music, clothing and architecture, as well as food, was noted by almost every city representative. As markets for consumer goods become global, individuals in many city regions are also beginning to rely on those markets to deliver what were once semipublic services, such as education and recreation.

Changes in the economic function of major cities from manufacturing and shipping to finance and tourism have also caused important losses. Many historic city centers have been commodified for cultural tourism. Buildings or streets originally constructed as factories or warehouses now house retail shops or museums. The original factory workers or longshoremen, who often lived near their jobs, have given way to visitors who travel by car or plane from outside the city or even from other countries to admire buildings that have been restored in form but completely transformed in function. New high-rise office buildings, convention centers, stadiums and luxury hotels are often imposed on the urban landscape, generally with little regard for their spatial and social context.

By some measures of material circumstance the globalization process is encouraging, especially when considering the contributions of medical science and certain basic aspects of education and sanitation that can be made available with relatively inexpensive public investments. The reality, however, is that living standards and employment opportunities are deteriorating for growing segments of the population throughout the world.

Most new urban workers enjoy less security, if also more freedom, than their parents may have experienced as subsistence farmers or plantation laborers. Global information technologies and financial techniques now allow firms to seek out the world’s lowest-cost sites and labor, if necessary shifting jobs from one country to another in a matter of weeks.

The same new information media and transportation options that enable consumers to choose from a wider array of goods, or workers to choose from a wider array of jobs, also let criminals choose from a wider array of potential targets. Some conference participants argued that the perceived decrease in physical security was more apparent than real, especially in the U.S. But the perception itself is clearly driving a worldwide demand for gated or secure housing.

The positive and negative effects of globalization on the quality of life are two sides of the same coin, rather than tradeoffs. The same information technologies and market organization that spread new consumer goods around the world within weeks also transmit new “bads,” such as AIDS. The same automobiles that provide increased access to recreational opportunities in the countryside for city dwellers also produce sprawling cities that parcel out that countryside into private yards rather than scenic vistas of farmland or forest.

Given these contradictions, we must search for alternative models of production and consumption—models that permit people to strengthen their communities and protect their environments, that offer the possibility of creating productive employment for the whole population, and that place limits on the accelerated process of polarization.

The Role of Governance

To what extent are voters in global city regions asking their local, metropolitan or national governments to find ways of eliminating the negative effects of globalization? Conference participants in San Diego, Ankara and Tokyo, for example, reported that local elections are now fought over who benefits from globalization. Those voters who identify more with the global than the local economy demand that governments make high-technology infrastructure investments, build convention centers or stadiums, and promote higher education to attract future jobs.

In contrast, most lower-skilled workers see globalization as more of a threat than an opportunity, and are more concerned with investing limited local resources in such public services as schools and neighborhood clinics. Yet governments that avoid unpopular political decisions by focusing on local services may only be postponing the inevitable impact of globalization, including its potentially long-term beneficial effects.

In the end, the capacity of governments at any level to manage global forces may be limited, however. There is an inherent mismatch between the global economy and government, not only in the spatial sense of local or fragmented governments struggling to master regional or global economic forces, but in the contrasting operating modes of markets and governments.

Globalization has made increasingly problematic the definition of both “the region” that should be planned and “the community” that should participate in those plans. Local governments and even most national governments are losing their capacity to shield local businesses from global competition. In almost every city region represented at the conference, specialized interest groups and nongovernmental organizations have multiplied, while all-purpose governments have begun to fragment and decentralize. Political devolution is most advanced in the United States, but has begun to take hold elsewhere as well.

The tendency of governments of global city regions is to dispense with elaborate spatial planning techniques and instead adjust to what one conference planner called these fundamentally “new rules of property and politics.” But this leaves many contradictions: between the opportunities of the elites and the poor; between the advocates of greater local autonomy and those committed to emerging regional patterns of interdependence; and between policies favoring growth as opposed to redistribution of resources. Without an effective system of governance, all of these dichotomies have the potential for escalating conflict.

In preparation for the 2003–2004 academic year, the Lincoln Institute has made some changes in its departmental structure. We established the Department of International Studies to integrate the Institute’s international research and educational programs that address key land and tax policy issues identified by the existing departments of Valuation and Taxation and Planning and Development. This new department’s work includes the well-established Program on Latin America and the Caribbean and a new Program on the People’s Republic of China, as well as ongoing programs in Taiwan, Central and Eastern Europe and other areas of the world.

Cities in developing nations, and in Latin America in particular, vividly illustrate the contemporary relevance of Henry George’s concerns about progress engendering poverty through constraints on access to land ownership and persistent informality in land markets. The ten-year retrospective article on the Latin America Program (see page 8) provides an overview of the changing context of land and tax policy in the region and a review of the Institute’s current programs.

The new Program on the People’s Republic of China addresses the fundamental problems of land allocation, land taxation and the development of land markets in one of the world’s fastest growing economies. The Institute has an agreement with the Ministry of Land and Resources in Beijing to collaborate on researching and teaching land and tax policy (see Land Lines April 2003). Other partners in this initiative are the National Center for Smart Growth and the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs at the University of Maryland; the Development Research Center of the State Council; the China Development Institute in Shenzhen; and several university and local government departments.

China initiated fundamental and revolutionary land use reforms during the mid-1980s, addressing privately held land use rights, land banking, land trusts, land readjustments, and development of land markets in both urban and rural areas. The Institute will contribute to the implementation of these reform measures by sponsoring educational and training programs for Chinese public officials and practitioners and by supporting research and publications by both international and Chinese scholars. Institute faculty with expertise in urban and regional planning, real estate development, land economics and property taxation will introduce curriculum materials designed for China that build on our work in Latin America and other regions of the world.

The Institute is also continuing its long-term educational and research programs in collaboration with the International Center for Land Policy Studies and Training in Taiwan, including the annual cosponsored course on “Infrastructure Planning and Urban Development” for public officials from developing countries. Institute faculty associated with the Department of Valuation and Taxation are involved with officials from the public and private sectors in Central and Eastern European countries as they develop and implement land and tax reforms

I believe this new department will help us operate more efficiently abroad and better integrate our international experiences in all areas.

The twenty-first century will witness record growth in the number and distribution of private residential communities. Collectively referred to as common interest communities (CICs) or common interest developments (CIDs), these communities rely on covenants, conditions and restrictions to privately govern and control land use, design decisions, services and social conduct. The communities own, operate and manage the residential property within their boundaries, including open space, parking, recreational facilities and streets. Although CICs historically have been the domain of the affluent, they are now becoming a viable choice for both suburban and urban residential development. Taking the form of condominiums, cooperatives, and single- and multifamily homes, both gated and nongated private communities are spreading among diverse economic and social classes.

A Worldwide Phenomenon

The proliferation of private communities in the United States is causing an unprecedented transition from traditional individual ownership to collective governance of property, signaling a remarkable shift in the American political and economic landscape. This trend establishes a new micro-scale level of governance beneath existing municipal structures, and highlights other tensions between the public and private sectors.

Indeed, the numbers provide a clear indication of this movement’s strength. At the end of the twentieth century, about 47 million Americans lived in condominiums, cooperatives and homeowner associations (HOAs). Growing from only 500 in the 1960s to an estimated 231,000 in 1999, HOAs now comprise almost 15 percent of the national housing stock, with an estimated addition of 8,000 to 10,000 private developments each year. In the 50 largest metropolitan areas, more than half of all new housing is now built under the governance of neighborhood associations. In California—particularly in the Los Angeles and San Diego metropolitan areas—this figure exceeds 60 percent (Treese 1999).

Recent press coverage and research from Europe, Africa, South America and Asia suggest that CICs are rapidly being popularized in other parts of the world as well. Although gated communities are still rare in Britain, former prime minister Margaret Thatcher reportedly moved into such a community in South London. In South Africa, where secure communities were an unavoidable consequence of racism, post-apartheid gated developments are inhabited by all races, and not only by the wealthy. In Saudi Arabia private compounds of linked houses provide extended families with privacy and identity. Those compounds seem to be a reaction to the single residential typology imported from abroad during the country’s modernization period.

Since the economic reforms of the early 1980s, many residential areas in Chinese cities have walls to improve security and define social status. Often these developments are designed by U.S. companies and based on U.S. planning and design standards. Private communities in Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia, are marketed as places that allow the differentiation of lifestyle and give prestige and security to their inhabitants. In Latin America sprawling gated communities at the metropolitan edges of Santiago, Chile, Bogotá, Colombia, and other cities have become the norm for a growing professional class in need of a secure lifestyle in an environment dominated by social and economic poverty. The deteriorating political and economic state of affairs in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has resulted in situations where developers and private companies provide privatized “public” services that attract large sectors of the population to private developments housing up to half a million people (Environment and Planning B 2002).

Dual Governance, Rules and Outcomes

The spread of CICs in the U.S. is driven by the mutual interests of developers and local governments, including planning officials. Developers benefit because they can maintain profits—despite the high costs of land and infrastructure—by introducing efficient land design schemes and, often, higher densities. Local governments prefer CICs because they privatize infrastructure and reduce public costs. At the same time, consumers see a way to protect their property values through the ability to control their neighborhood character by using compliance and enforcement mechanisms. CICs also provide consumers greater infrastructure options, recreational amenities and community services.

The growing fiscal crisis experienced by many local governments means they are often unable to respond to such traditional community demands as building and maintaining streets, collecting garbage, snowplowing and other services. The establishment of a separate legal mechanism within a private neighborhood association allows collective control over a neighborhood’s common environment and the private provision of common services. Perhaps more important, this trend creates a de facto deregulation of municipal subdivision standards and zoning, because cities and towns allow for a different, more flexible set of standards to be implemented in private developments. Often, the results are innovative spatial and architectural layouts and, sometimes, unusually sensitive environmental design. This shift in neighborhood governance enables a resultant shift in the design of residential developments that heretofore has not been fully appreciated.

A recent nationwide survey of public officials and developers gauges the impacts of subdivision regulations on the design of residential developments and the practices of developers in rapidly growing regions of the country (Ben-Joseph 2003). It assesses attitudes and perceptions and identifies the issues regarding subdivision regulations that members of the housing industry and the regulatory agencies feel are affecting housing development.

Excessive Regulations

As early as 1916 Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., commented on subdivision standards and regulations.

While such regulations are intended only to guard against the evil results of ignorance and greed on the part of landowners and builders, they also limit and control the operations of those who are neither ignorant nor greedy; and it is clear that the purpose in framing and enforcing them should be to leave open the maximum scope for individual enterprise, initiative and ingenuity that is compatible with adequate protection of the public interests. Such regulations are, and always should be, in a state of flux and adjustment—on the one hand with a view to preventing newly discovered abuses, and on the other hand with a view to opening a wider opportunity of individual discretion at points where the law is found to be unwisely restrictive. (Olmsted 1916, 3)

Indeed, developers in the 2003 survey clearly expressed their frustration with the excessive and often unwarranted nature of physical improvements and standards associated with subdivision development. When asked to indicate which types of requirements present the greatest expense in conforming to regulations, an overwhelming majority (80 percent) pointed to requirements associated with site design. When asked to indicate which specific requirements they perceived as excessive, 52 percent of the respondents indicated those relating to street design and construction, with almost 45 percent indicating land dedication and 43 percent storm sewer systems (underground piping for storm water mitigation). When asked about which physical standards within each category were seen as excessive, those most frequently cited were street widths (75 percent of the respondents), street rights-of-way (73 percent) and requirements of land for open space (73 percent). Most developers also mentioned water and sewer hook-up fees (85–90 percent) and payments in lieu of land dedication (79 percent) as being excessive monetary requirements associated with physical improvements (see Table 1).

While one might expect that developers would criticize regulations as interfering in their business, it is important to note that most respondents were selective in their answers to the survey. Out of 29 requirements listed in Table 1, only 13 were considered excessive by the majority of developers, while 16 others were deemed reasonable. Such results indicate that many developers are tuned in to construction and design performance, and their attitude toward regulation cannot always be assumed to be negative.

Furthermore, the surveyed public officials (town planners and town engineers) often concurred with the developers’ observations. Generally these officials agreed that the regulatory process, such as the enforcement of subdivision regulations, has become more demanding and complex. Over the past five years, for example, 70 percent of the jurisdictions where these public officials work have introduced new requirements, and 57 percent have increased specifications, such as those for setbacks and lot sizes. Only 16 percent of these jurisdictions have decreased their specifications, mostly by reducing street widths.

Relief from Subdivision Regulations

Two-thirds of residential developers consider government regulations, particularly those pertaining to the design and control of subdivisions, the main culprit in prohibiting design innovation and increasing the cost of housing. More specifically, they see these regulations as an impediment to increasing densities, changing housing types, and reconfiguring streets and lots.

One way developers try to relax these regulations is through requests for relief in the form or zoning or design variances. More than half of the surveyed developers (52 percent) had to apply for some sort of relief in at least half of their projects, while 37 percent had to apply in at least three-fourths of their projects. When asked to point to the type of changes they requested, many indicated higher-density single-family projects, more multifamily units, and more varied site and structural plans. The majority of the developers in the survey responded that they sought to increase the density of housing units on their sites, but 72 percent noted that because of existing regulations they had to design lower-density developments than they wanted. Some developers reported that regulations forced them to build in greenfield locations away from major urban areas, where restrictions and abutters’ objections were less onerous.

Although almost all of the public officials (83 percent) reported that their jurisdictions require private developments to follow established subdivision regulations, the enforcement of these standards through the approval process is malleable. In some cases, when such a development is classified as a condominium, which may include attached and/or detached dwelling units, no formal review of street standards is required. In fact, the majority of public officials surveyed (61 percent) indicated that their jurisdictions allow for narrower streets to be constructed within private developments. One respondent stated, “Variances are more easily granted within private road systems since the county will not have any maintenance responsibility or liability.”

The practice of building narrower roadways and offering smaller building setbacks within private subdivisions has become widely accepted over the last decade. A street standards survey completed in 1995 showed that 84 percent of the cities responding allowed for different street standards in such developments, and that they more readily accepted the introduction of different paving materials, changes in street configurations, and the employment of traffic calming devices (Ben-Joseph 1995).

Design Benefits

Both public officials and developers acknowledge the design benefits associated with private subdivisions (see Table 2). Fifty-seven percent of officials indicated that private developments are introducing innovative design in the form of building arrangements and unit clustering. Forty-one percent felt that such developments permit the introduction of housing types not found elsewhere in their communities, and 61 percent indicated that they allow for narrower street standards to be incorporated.

While public officials see the benefits of pushing the design envelope within the confines of the development itself, many are also concerned about the social implications and impacts of these private developments on their surrounding communities. “As a matter of policy,” a survey respondent wrote, “gated private communities are discouraged as they are not in keeping with the urban form, which calls for an interconnecting network of vehicular and pedestrian movement. In addition, the walling of neighborhoods from arterial roadways should be avoided by alternatives such as the placement of other compatible uses along the periphery.”

Both developers and public officials believe that common subdivision regulations restrict alternative solutions, and they see privatizing subdivisions as a vehicle for simplifying the approval process and introducing design innovation. As one of the developers remarked, “Regular subdivision codes don’t allow flexibility. Lots are too standardized and streets use too much area. If I could build narrow streets and small lots, developments controlled by covenants and HOAs will not be necessary.” The ability to provide design choices and efficient layouts and to avoid a lengthy approval process drives both public and private sectors to offer CICs rather than typical subdivisions. Indeed, it seems that in the last decade most innovation in subdivision design has sprung from within the private domain and under the governance of community associations rather than within the public realm through traditional means.

Toward Better Subdivisions

The proliferation of CICs, with their ability to plan, design and govern outside of public boundaries, can be seen as an indicator of a failed public system. When developers and public officials resort to privatization to achieve a more responsive design outcome, and when local jurisdictions acknowledge that privatized communities provide a straightforward way to grant variations and innovation, then something is wrong with the existing parameters of subdivision codes and regulations.

For the last 25 years the subdivision approval process has increased in complexity, in the number of agencies involved, in the number of delays, and in the regular addition of new requirements (Seidel 1978). Both developers and public officials acknowledge that the application for variances and changes in subdivision regulations are lengthy and cumbersome. Therefore, it is not surprising that developers see private projects governed by HOAs as not only responding to market demands and trends, but also introducing planning and design concepts that are often not allowed or are difficult to get authorized under the typical approval process.

CICs are enabling developers to maintain profits and keep the design process relatively open-ended and flexible. The ability to operate outside the regular, common set of subdivision regulations allows developers to offer various design solutions that fit the local setting, the targeted site and the prospective consumers. In some cases these can be attractive, high-density yet affordable single-family developments, and in others low-density, high-end yet ecologically sensitive construction (McKenzie 2003).

The concept of private communities as environmentally sensitive developments may seem a contradiction in terms. However, some of these developments provide examples of responsible construction that minimizes environmental impact while maximizing economic value. In Dewees Island, South Carolina, there are few impervious road surfaces, allowing full restoration of the underground aquifer. Only vegetation indigenous to the local coastal plains is allowed. This xeriscaping approach removes the need for irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides. In addition, homes are required to use water conservation fixtures, reducing water consumption by 60 percent.

Paradoxically, while CICs are often controlled and managed by strict covenants and regulations, their initial design is very much outside the mainstream regulatory apparatus. It is precisely for this reason that they prove to be more flexible in their design solutions and more agreeable to developers, consumers and local governments.

How can such flexibility be integrated in the regular planning process? Can subdivision regulations be made more accommodating and less prescriptive? Will such an approach level the playing field and allow for more housing choices and greater design variety in the public domain? Will such changes promote developers to plan subdivisions endowed with CICs’ design qualities without their restrictive covenants and privatized shared spaces? And conversely, can CICs, while exhibiting great variation in architecture and site design features, be made less controlling in their management policies?

There are many issues raised by the spread of CICs, but none is more important than the realization that public policy and subdivision regulations must allow and promote more variety in housing styles and development options. Consumers should not be forced into CICs because they are the only type of development that offers a lively choice of features. CICs should be seen as a catalyst to change subdivision standards and regulations and as a vehicle to create a bridge between public officials and developers. Through the use of CICs developers are not only able to circumvent existing regulations, lower development costs and in some cases produce quite innovative community design solution, but also enable jurisdictions to secure new taxpayers with less public expenditure.

Not all CICs are created equal, and many are far from perfect. But, in terms of design efficiency, utilization of space, and integration of social and environmental amenities, private communities illustrate the shortcomings of many standards applied to typical subdivisions.

References

Ben-Joseph, Eran. 1995. Residential street standards and neighborhood traffic control: A survey of cities’ practices and public officials’ attitudes. Berkeley: Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

———. 2003. Subdivision regulations—Practices and attitudes: A survey of public officials and developers in the nation’s fastest growing single-family housing markets. Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. 2002. Theme issue: The global spread of gated communities 29(3).

McKenzie, Evan. 2003. Common-interest housing in the communities of tomorrow. Housing Policy Debate 14(1/2):203–234.

Olmsted, Frederick L., Jr. 1916. Basic principles of city planning. In City planning: A series of papers presenting the essential elements of a city plan, John Nolen, ed., 1–18. New York: D. Appleton and Company.

Seidel, S. 1978. Housing costs and government regulations: Confronting the regulatory maze. New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Treese, Clifford. 1999. Community associations factbook. Alexandria, VA: Community Associations Institute.

Eran Ben-Joseph is associate professor of landscape architecture and planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. This article is based in part on his survey and research that were supported by the Lincoln Institute.

Diego Alfonso Erba is a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, on leave from his position as professor in the Graduate Program of Geology at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos–UNISINOS, Brazil. He received undergraduate training as a land survey engineer from Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina, and later earned two master of science degrees and taught in several universities in Brazil. His early professional experience was in regularization of informal settlements in Santa Fé, Argentina, and he headed the GIS department for an agricultural cooperative in southern Brazil. He also earned a doctorate in Surveying Sciences from Universidad Nacional de Catamarca, Argentina, and did postdoctoral research in GIS for Water Bodies at the Natural Resource Center of Shiga University, Otsu, Japan; and in GIS for Urban Applications at Clark Labs-IDRISI of Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Land Lines: What is a territorial cadastre?

Diego Erba: The institution of a territorial cadastre does not exist in the United States, at least not in the same way as in many countries around the world. Although the term “cadastre” has more than one meaning, in general there is consensus that it comes from the Greek catastichon, which can be translated as “a list of parcels for taxation.”

This kind of list exists in the U.S., but the profile of the institutions that manage the data are different from those in Latin America and in many European and African countries, where the territorial cadastre encompasses economic, geometrical, and legal data on land parcels and data on the owners or occupants. The institutions that manage this data, also often named territorial cadastres, are closely connected with the Registry of Deeds or Register of Land Titles because their data complements each other and guarantees land property rights. These longstanding connections reflect the cadastral heritage of Roman and Napoleonic legal systems.

LL: Why do urban public administrators need to know about territorial cadastres?

DE: The cadastre and the register should be connected for legal reasons, if not for practical reasons, and there are many models of how cadastres could or should relate to public institutions. Unfortunately, the norm is still an isolated or nonintegrated cadastre, which dramatically reduces its potential usefulness as a tool for urban planning and land policy.

For example, irregular settlements (slums) are generally developed on public or environmentally protected areas, or even on private parcels, and are neither taxed nor registered in territorial cadastre databases. These areas are represented in cadastral cartography as “blank polygons” as if nothing happened inside them. The paradox is that data and cartography about irregular settlements normally exist, but that information is often in institutions that are not related to the cadastre and consequently are not registered.

There is a growing perception of the cadastre’s importance as a multipurpose information system serving not only the legal and financial sectors of cities, but also all of the institutions that make up the “urban reality,” including public services agencies, utilities, and even certain private providers of urban services. The move to this new concept and improved urban information systems has not been easy or without resistance in developing countries, however.

LL: Why is a multipurpose cadastre so difficult to establish and use?

DE: The implementation of a multipurpose cadastre typically requires administrations to allow for more horizontal exchanges of information. It also frequently requires changes in the legal framework and the establishment of more fluid relationships between the public and private agents to share standardized data and ensure continuous investments to keep the databases and cartography up-to-date.

This sounds like a simple process, but in practice it is not easy because many administrators still consider that “the data is mine,” and they are not ready to collaborate. At the same time, some overly zealous administrators convinced of the potential value of a multipurpose cadastre may skip stages and jump from a traditional cadastre to a multipurpose model without due attention to effectively implementing the exchanges of information.

Even when operated privately, territorial cadastres are treated as a public service, which means they depend on public funding and political decisions for approval to update the land valuation system or the cartography. At the same time, this kind of public service is not visible and therefore is not as interesting for the politicians who wish to demonstrate their accomplishments through more tangible projects such as a new bridge or school.

The updating of cadastral data impacts land value and consequently the amount of property taxes, which is not popular with voters. Nevertheless, new government administrators who seek to improve their jurisdiction’s fiscal status may decide to update the cadastre in an attempt to increase property taxation revenues. This has a strong political impact at the beginning of the official’s term, but the data on property value may not be touched for years afterwards and will grow more and more inaccurate compared to the actual market value. In many Latin American jurisdictions legislation imposes the obligation of cadastral updates on a regular basis, although compliance is inconsistent.

Another frequent mistake is to consider that the solution is to implement a modern geographic information system (GIS) to manage the cadastral data. In the ideal situation we would like to see integrated systems that use coordinated and standardized databases, but some municipalities are ill-equipped, and those that do have sufficient infrastructure do not have enough well-prepared employees to accomplish the tasks. The notion that “one size fits all” is not really applicable to a region in which there are such significant differences among jurisdictions. I like to say that the problem with cadastral institutions is not hardware or software but “people-ware.” Even when financial resources exist, the lack of trained professionals and technicians is a significant obstacle.

LL: In this context, is it possible to consider a multipurpose cadastre for Latin America?

DE: It is possible, but the concept is still new and frequently is not well understood. There are many good cadastres in Latin America, as in some Colombian and Brazilian municipalities and in some Mexican and Argentinean states. In some jurisdictions the fusion of the territorial cadastres with public institutions and geotechnological systems generates cadastral institutes that are better structured in terms of budget and technical staff and consequently are better able to identify illegal settlements and monitor the increment of land value using modern tools.

However, from my viewpoint the region still does not have a full-fledged operational multipurpose cadastre. A common assumption is that implementing a multipurpose cadastre requires adding social and environmental data to the existing alphanumeric databases available in the traditional territorial cadastres, which consider economic, geometric, and legal aspects of the parcel, and then connecting all that data with a parcel map in GIS. While this is very important it is not essential, because the implementation is not a technological problem as much as a philosophical one. Most municipal administrations do not think about putting institutions that traditionally manage different social (education and health), environmental, and territorial (cadastre) databases under the same roof.

LL: How is your work with the Lincoln Institute helping to broaden awareness about territorial cadastres?

DE: I have been working with the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean since 2002 to explore the relationships among multipurpose cadastres and the program’s four topical areas: large urban projects; land valuation and taxation; informal settlements and upgrading programs; and value capture. It is always a challenge to tailor the curriculum for educational programs, but we believe strongly that it is important to facilitate the widespread sharing of knowledge in each country and to prepare public officials and practitioners with different levels of expertise. The participants, including cadastre administrators, urban planners, lawyers, and real estate developers, gain a common language and vision of the urban cadastral applications, and they can start a process to improve the system in their own countries.

Our pedagogical strategy for this year involves the dissemination of knowledge through a combination of distance education and traditional classroom courses at different levels. We plan to develop training seminars followed by a tailored distance education course in those countries that demonstrate the conditions necessary to implement this new vision of the multipurpose cadastre. Finally, we will organize a regional classroom course for the best distance education students in three neighboring countries.

This plan contrasts with many training programs offered by other international institutions, which contemplate concepts and the use of tools that may not be applicable in countries with different legal frameworks and technological levels. We will begin this cycle with seminars in Chile and Peru, working with the Chilean Association of Municipalities and the Institute of Regional Economy and Local Government in Arequipa, Peru. These and other partners in Latin America have committed to disseminate and increase local capacity on these issues.

Another component of our strategy is the dissemination of resource materials. We will be publishing two books later in 2006 about the concepts and implementation of cadastres that can be applied in most countries. One book describes in detail the cadastral system in each Latin American country, and the other conceptualizes the juridical, economical, geometrical, environmental, and social aspects of the multipurpose cadastre, highlighting the relationship between the territorial cadastre and the four topical areas of the Institute’s Latin America Program.

In 2005 we made a DVD, which is currently available in Spanish and Portuguese. It includes a documentary film about multipurpose cadastres and some taped segments from classes and discussions on the relationships between the multipurpose cadastre and complex urban issues.

LL: What is the long-term goal of the multipurpose cadastre?

DE: The problems that have been raised here should not discourage urban administrators from reorganizing their cadastres and their legal land policy frameworks in their cities and countries. On the contrary, they should try to change the reality by developing new laws that shows the spirit of an updated land policy. Data on Latin American cities exist, but they are fragmented and not standardized.

The best way to build a multipurpose cadastre is to integrate all the public and private institutions that are working at the parcel level and to develop a unique identifier to define standards for the alphanumeric and cartographic databases. It is a very simple and clear concept, but its implementation is not. To reach that objective it is necessary for administrators, practitioners, and citizens to understand the cadastre’s potential for improving land management practices and the quality of life in urban areas. Many times simple solutions can help to solve complex problems such as those presented by cadastral systems.

Faculty Profile of Fernanda Furtado

Eduardo Reese, arquitecto que se especializa en planeamiento urbano y regional, es el subadministrador del Instituto de la Vivienda de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. En cargos profesionales anteriores, fue asesor técnico para los planes maestros de más de 20 ciudades en argentina; Secretario de Políticas Socioeconómicas del Ministerio de Desarrollo Humano y Laboral de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; asesor al Consejo de Planeamiento Urbano de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires; y Secretario de Planeamiento en la ciudad de Avellaneda.

Reese es docente en el Instituto del Conurbano de la Universidad Nacional del General Sarmiento en Buenos Aires. Actualmente es profesor de gestión urbana en el programa de grado en urbanismo en dicha universidad. También enseña desarrollo urbano en programas de maestría de la Faculta de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño de la Universidad de La Plata, así como en universidades de Mar del Plata y Córdoba. Además, dirige el plan maestro de la cuenca Matanza-Riachuelo en Buenos Aires.

Land Lines: ¿Cómo se involucró usted en el Programa para América Latina del Instituto Lincoln?

Eduardo Reese: Mi relación con el Programa se remonta a 1997, cuando estábamos elaborando el plan de la ciudad de Córdoba, que incluyó la formulación de diferentes proyectos urbanos de gran escala. En ese momento el Instituto colaboró activamente para ampliar el debate de los impactos de estos proyectos sobre el mercado de suelo y, consecuentemente, en la configuración de la ciudad. Posteriormente, me fui integrando en diversas actividades del Instituto, y hace cuatro años asumí la coordinación de los cursos anuales de Gestión del Suelo en Grandes Proyectos Urbanos, a partir del fallecimiento de Mario Lungo, quien había dirigido ese programa desde su inicio.

En el 2004, el Programa y el Instituto del Conurbano de la Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, realizamos en conjunto el curso Mercados de Suelo: Teoría e instrumentos para la gestión de políticas, el cual fue la primera actividad del Programa para América Latina y el Caribe que implicó un programa de formación de siete meses para 50 alumnos argentinos. Esa experiencia educativa ayudó a formar una masa crítica de técnicos y profesionales con una visión innovadora y diferente respecto de la gestión de las políticas de suelo. El impacto de ese curso se ha reflejado en decisiones de políticas urbanas en diferentes municipalidades (tales como San Fernando y Morón en el Gran Buenos Aires); en la constitución en Argentina del Movimiento de Reforma Urbana en 2005; y en cambios académicos en el mismo Instituto del Conurbano.

Land Lines: ¿Qué rol puede jugar un proyecto urbano en la calidad de vida de una ciudad en el contexto latinoamericano?

Eduardo Reese: Las grandes operaciones o proyectos urbanísticos sobre sectores definidos de la ciudad (tanto en áreas centrales como en las periferias) han sido grandes protagonistas del urbanismo contemporáneo en el último cuarto de siglo. En América Latina se cuenta hoy con un amplio muestreo de experiencias y proyectos, aunque todavía se requiere una reflexión teórica más rigurosa. Algunos ejemplos importantes son los proyectos del Portal del Bicentenario en Santiago de Chile; los proyectos urbanos integrales en Medellín, Colombia; las operaciones urbanas en diferentes ciudades de Brasil; y el proyecto de reestructuración en el sector Oeste de San Fernando, Argentina.

Sin embargo, es importante aclarar que las grandes operaciones urbanísticas son un instrumento de intervención en la ciudad que ya tienen muchos años no sólo en los países centrales, sino también en nuestras sociedades. En Buenos Aires, por ejemplo, la apertura de la Avenida de Mayo y de las diagonales, proyectada hacia 1880 y llevada a cabo en las décadas siguientes, implicó importantes impactos, tanto en lo físico-espacial como en lo social, económico y, fundamentalmente, en el campo simbólico. Este enfoque de múltiples impactos permite, sin duda, asimilar la operación de Avenida de Mayo a un gran proyecto urbano contemporáneo, pero también generó un gran debate sobre quién debía financiar la operación y quién se apropiaría de las rentas de suelo generadas. En última instancia, la Corte Suprema falló que la municipalidad no podía financiar las obras con la plusvalía generada, porque las rentas eran enteramente de los terratenientes. Durante muchos años, este caso fue un precedente en relación a la intervención estatal en el proceso de valorización de suelo generado por un gran proyecto público.

Land Lines: Usted tiene una mirada muy crítica del reconocido proyecto de regeneración urbana Puerto Madero, en Buenos Aires. ¿Qué haría de manera diferente en otras grandes áreas de redesarrollo?

Eduardo Reese: Puerto Madero es un caso emblemático de proyectos urbanos que promueven un modelo de planeamiento urbano segregado y que hoy en día se “exporta” a otras ciudades y países como instrumento básico para poder “competir” por las inversiones internacionales. En este proyecto el Estado adoptó una posición de sumisión frente al mercado y permitió la construcción de un barrio exclusivo para sectores de altísimos ingresos. Es un ejemplo notorio de una política pública diseñada explícitamente para privilegiar a los sectores más ricos sin recuperación de las enormes valorizaciones del suelo que fueron producto de esta misma política pública.

Más aún, a fin de garantizar a los inversionistas la sobrevalorización de las propiedades que compraron, el emprendimiento tiene una serie de características que la “recortan” (física y socialmente) del resto de la ciudad, creando con ello rentas aún mayores debido a la segregación. Puerto Madero no tiene un muro explícito, como los condominios cerrados, pero tiene múltiples acciones y mensajes implícitos, explícitos y simbólicos que señalan claramente que ese lugar está fuera del alcance para la mayoría de la sociedad:

• Es el único barrio administrado por una Corporación Estatal que, además, hace 19 años paga sueldos de funcionarios y gerentes para construir y mantener unos pocos metros cuadrados de parque accesibles únicamente a aquel barrio adinerado.
• El proyecto creó una escenografía urbana diseñada y de cuidadosos detalles estéticos que contrasta fuertemente con la pobreza brutal del espacio público en el resto de la ciudad. Los parques e infraestructura son construidos sobre suelo ya privatizado para garantizar las inversiones, pese a utilizar fondos públicos, que benefician únicamente a los propietarios de élites de las torres de vivienda y oficinas que los rodean.
• El sistema se apoya en un sofisticado sistema de cámaras y de seguridad que definen y controlan el acceso a una zona sobreprotegida.
• Todos estos mecanismos están al servicio de garantizar la sobrevalorización de las propiedades como un seguro de que allí solo podrá comprar y habitar la clase social más alta.

En definitiva, Puerto Madero es la clara demostración de urbanismo y política pública de distribución regresiva: un “ghetto” libre de problemas para ricos.

Land Lines: En la medida en que las municipalidades compiten por inversiones externas, ¿es posible reconciliar esto con objetivos alternativos tales como prioridades ambientales y sociales?

Eduardo Reese: El problema de nuestras ciudades no es la falta de planeamiento, sino el actual orden excluyente de las políticas y del urbanismo. No puede haber una ley para la ciudad formal y un conjunto de excepciones para el resto. Es necesario crear un nuevo orden urbanístico y jurídico en América Latina respecto al derecho a la ciudad, la distribución equitativa de los beneficios de la urbanización, y la función social de la tenencia de suelo.

Land Lines: ¿De qué manera la municipalidad de San Fernando, en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, ofrece una alternativa a este enfoque?

Eduardo Reese: San Fernando es un municipio ubicado en la zona norte del Gran Buenos Aires, a 30 km de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, con una superficie continental de 23 km² y una población de 156.000 habitantes. Tiene un frente litoral al Río Luján de 5 km de extensión sobre su desembocadura en el Río de la Plata donde se concentra una gran cantidad de actividades productivas vinculadas con la náutica. Este sector del municipio tiene una ubicación privilegiada, con altos valores inmobiliarios y está dotado de la totalidad de los servicios urbanos.

El plan urbano y el modelo de gestión del suelo se comenzaron a elaborar en el 2003 a través de un convenio entre el municipio y el Instituto del Conurbano de la Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento. En el año 2005, un seminario de capacitación del Instituto Lincoln ayudó a ampliar las ideas tradicionales sobre manejo de suelo que abundaban en los grupos profesionales locales y llevó a una serie de decisiones importantes:

• generar recursos sustentables para reorientar el desarrollo urbano;
• recuperar la cultura de financiamiento de obras públicas con una contribución por mejoras
• recuperar suelo para vivienda social, infraestructura urbana y redes viales
• fortalecer las administraciones urbanas y municipales como actores innovadores en la implementación de políticas públicas; y
• limitar la sobrevaluación del suelo al intervenir en el mercado a través de mecanismos tales como nueva legislación de planeamiento urbano, instrumentos para recuperar la valorización, y una importante oferta de suelo para los sectores de bajos ingresos.

La política urbana en San Fernando se enfocó en una serie de estrategias de acción que incluyeron (1) asegurar el acceso a nuevos espacios públicos sobre el río para fines recreativos, deportivos y comerciales, especialmente para ser aprovechados por los sectores pobres; y (2) la regularización comprehensiva del sector oeste de la municipalidad, donde se concentra los mayores niveles de pobreza.

Para implementar estas estrategias, fue necesario aumentar los recursos fiscales para inversión pública de dos maneras: a través de la apropiación de la rentabilidad del uso del suelo o tierra municipal sobre el río a través de la creación del consorcio Parque Náutico de San Fernando, S.A. (PNSFSA); y con la participación de la municipalidad en la plusvalía a partir de una reforma tributaria municipal. (PNSFSA es una empresa creada por la municipalidad de San Fernando para administrar las tierras del dominio municipal en la costa ribereña del sector este de la ciudad, conocida como Marina Park).

La experiencia de San Fernando se basa en un conjunto de herramientas de gestión orientadas a la redistribución de rentas urbanas para construir una ciudad más equitativa. El suelo se considera como un activo clave dentro de una estrategia más amplia de desarrollo local y, por lo tanto, la gestión depende de una combinación de instrumentos de planeamiento, administrativos, económicos, fiscales y legales orientados a fortalecer el papel del sector público. El eje central de las políticas es la búsqueda de equidad en la distribución de los costos y beneficios de la urbanización, dentro del contexto desafiante de la creciente presión sobre el suelo en toda el área metropolitana de Buenos Aires.

Land Lines: ¿Qué cambios habría que realizar en el sistema educativo para la capacitación de los planificadores urbanos?

Eduardo Reese: Primero, es necesario incorporar una mayor comprensión del funcionamiento de los mercados de suelo en el contexto actual de las ciudades de los países en desarrollo. Segundo, hace falta un análisis más crítico de los instrumentos teóricos, metodológicos y técnicos para llevar a cabo el diagnóstico e intervención en asuntos de suelo urbano. El curso sobre mercados de suelo de 2004 que mencioné antes buscó desarrollar este tipo de materiales para permitir que los estudiantes cubrieran las diferentes escalas y dimensiones del problema.

Land Lines: ¿Qué tensiones existen entre intereses públicos y privados en el planeamiento urbano?

Eduardo Reese: Esta es una pregunta crucial porque toda la historia de la gestión territorial en nuestras ciudades ha tenido un hilo conductor: el derecho de la propiedad privada del suelo juntamente con la estructura de la propiedad han entrado siempre en conflicto con la actividad urbanística que es una responsabilidad pública. En ese sentido siempre habrá una tensión entre intereses públicos y privados en la construcción de la ciudad.

A mi juicio, los proyectos urbanos en América Latina tienen la responsabilidad de contribuir a la creación de nuevos espacios de uso y goce público, a la inclusión social, a la generación de empleo, a la equidad en el acceso a los servicios para todos, a la sostenibilidad ambiental y a la redistribución de las rentas urbanas generadas por el proyecto. Los cuatro casos mencionados antes de Chile, Colombia, Brasil y Argentina muestran que estos beneficios son posibles en muchos países.

Sin embargo, y lamentablemente, en una gran cantidad de casos en América Latina los proyectos urbanos se han justificado como necesarios para atraer inversiones y/o consumidores y asegurar o reforzar las ventajas competitivas dinámicas de la ciudad. Estos insospechados objetivos positivos a veces se usan como un mecanismo para legitimizar intervenciones que profundizan la segregación socioespacial de las ciudades. Estos efectos adversos del mercado no son fatales para las ciudades, sino que son el resultado de elecciones políticas perversas.

Muchos países de América Latina han aprobado legislaciones para respaldar políticas de recuperación de plusvalías como medio de recuperar parte o todo el aumento en el valor del suelo privado debido a regulaciones o inversiones públicas. Hasta ahora, sin embargo, sólo algunas jurisdicciones en ciertos países han aplicado esta herramienta financiera potencialmente poderosa de forma sistemática y exitosa.

En 2011 y 2012 el Lincoln Institute of Land Policy realizó encuestas a autoridades públicas y académicos de la región para averiguar por qué no se ha utilizado la recuperación de plusvalías con más frecuencia. El cuestionario de 2012 fue diseñado para recabar las opiniones de los encuestados sobre la perspectiva de diseñar, institucionalizar e implementar dos instrumentos emblemáticos de la recuperación de plusvalías: las contribuciones de valorización y la venta de derechos de edificabilidad (outorga onerosa en portugués).

Las contribuciones de valorización (conocidas como “special assessments” en los Estados Unidos) son cargas impuestas a los dueños de propiedades seleccionadas para subvencionar el costo de una mejora o servicio público del que se benefician explícitamente (Borrero 2011; Borrero et al. 2011). Con la venta de derechos de edificabilidad, sin embargo, el gobierno impone cargos por la concesión de derechos especiales por él garantizados, como, por ejemplo, permitir un factor de edificabilidad más alto, un cambio de zonificación (por ejemplo, de residencial a comercial) o la conversión de suelo de uso rural a uso urbano (Sandroni 2011).

Los resultados de ambas encuestas ponen en duda gran parte de la “sabiduría convencional” sobre el uso de las políticas de recuperación de plusvalías en América Latina. En particular, los encuestados con experiencia real en el uso de estas herramientas consideran que las dificultades legales y técnicas presentan un obstáculo para su implementación menor que la incomprensión de las autoridades públicas con poder de decisión acerca de su rédito potencial. Más aún, la recuperación de plusvalías es considerada fundamentalmente como una herramienta para promover equidad en las ciudades, más que como una manera de mejorar la autonomía fiscal municipal.

Distribución de la encuesta

La primera encuesta, llevada a cabo en el segundo trimestre de 2011, fue distribuida electrónicamente a 436 funcionarios públicos y académicos que habían participado en uno o más cursos o talleres ofrecidos por el Instituto Lincoln sobre temas de recuperación de plusvalías. Un segundo cuestionario, con una serie de preguntas distintas, fue enviado por correo electrónico en febrero de 2012 a 14.355 personas afiliadas al Programa para América Latina y el Caribe del Instituto. Las personas que respondieron a estas encuestas (134 y 1.066, respectivamente) incluyeron a funcionarios de gobierno de todos los niveles, urbanistas, académicos, investigadores independientes y consultores, y miembros de organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG).

Analizadas por país, las respuestas a las opciones individuales de muchas de las preguntas fueron menos de diez. Por esta razón, y para simplificar la presentación, este análisis combina las respuestas de países con características sociopolíticas similares en el área de recuperación de plusvalías en tres grupos:

1. B olivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay y Venezuela. Estos cinco países cuentan con alguna legislación nacional sobre recuperación de plusvalías y son gobernados en la actualidad por gobiernos que favorecen las políticas de recuperación de plusvalías. Uruguay en 2008 (Ley No. 18.308 del 18 de junio de 2008) y Ecuador en 2010 (con su nuevo código nacional, COOT AD) aprobaron legislación nacional para ampliar el alcance de las prerrogativas gubernamentales sobre la plusvalía del suelo.

2. Argentina, Chile, México y Perú. Estos países maduros y de rápido crecimiento todavía están teniendo problemas para introducir legislación nacional más explícita sobre la recuperación de plusvalías, además de imponer contribuciones de valorización.

3. América Central y la República Dominicana. Los países de esta región comprenden un solo grupo porque son relativamente pequeños y tienen regímenes liberales de desarrollo urbano.

Brasil y Colombia se presentan por separado porque abarcan un porcentaje significativo de los encuestados y tienen la mayor cantidad de experiencia con las herramientas de recuperación de plusvalías. La cantidad de encuestados en general es proporcional al tamaño de la población del grupo de países, salvo Brasil y Colombia, que representan un porcentaje desproporcionadamente alto de encuestados (tabla 1).

El carácter pragmático de la recuperación de plusvalías

Aun cuando sólo unos pocos países estipulan explícitamente la recuperación de plusvalías en su legislación, la encuesta más concisa de 2011 reveló información detallada sobre las jurisdicciones que habían recuperado algo de la plusvalía resultante de los cambios en el uso del suelo. De los 13 países cubiertos por esa encuesta, los encuestados citaron 22 casos de recuperación de plusvalías en 30 jurisdicciones de 8 países. En general, estos casos involucraron cierto tipo de exacción para beneficio de la comunidad, logrado por medio de una negociación directa entre los emprendedores inmobiliarios y las autoridades públicas.

En promedio, sin embargo, la plusvalía recuperada ascendió a menos de un tercio del incremento estimado en el valor del suelo. La probabilidad de que la contribución exceda un tercio de la plusvalía total fue mayor cuando la contribución fue realizada en efectivo en vez de en especie. Estos casos se produjeron en países sin legislación explícita sobre la venta de derechos de edificabilidad, como Bolivia, Costa Rica y Perú, ilustrando la política pragmática de recuperación de plusvalías de las autoridades a cargo de la gestión del suelo urbano.

En general, los encuestados se consideran familiarizados con el tema, y los resultados de la encuesta de 2012 refuerzan el argumento de que el conocimiento de los instrumentos de recuperación de plusvalías no se limita a los países que han institucionalizado su práctica. Relativamente pocos encuestados declararon no estar familiarizados con los instrumentos de recuperación de plusvalías, si bien la cantidad real de funcionarios puede ser mayor, dado el sesgo a la autoselección de los encuestados (tabla 2). El porcentaje de encuestados que no están familiarizados con los instrumentos de recuperación de plusvalías en Brasil y Colombia es alrededor de la mitad del porcentaje de encuestados en la misma situación de otros países.

El desafío de la implementación

Uno de los argumentos más frecuentes que se dan sobre la dificultad de aplicar políticas de recuperación de plusvalías en América Latina es la complejidad técnica de su implementación y, en particular, el problema de cómo valorar la plusvalía de la tierra resultante de las intervenciones públicas. Para investigar la importancia de este tema, la encuesta de 2012 preguntó a los encuestados si consideraban que un margen de error del 30 por ciento en la valuación era aceptable para justificar la aplicación de la recuperación de plusvalías. La gran mayoría de los encuestados (89 por ciento) respondió que se deberían aplicar las políticas de recuperación de plusvalías fuera cual fuese el margen de error. Sólo el 11 por ciento argumentó lo contrario.

La razón principal que se citó para apoyar la recuperación de plusvalías fue nuevamente pragmática, pues se producen márgenes de error similares en otros contextos como, por ejemplo, a la hora de valuar la propiedad con fines de tributación (36,9 por ciento). La segunda respuesta, con un porcentaje cercano (31,8 por ciento) fue “la necesidad de establecer el fundamento”. El hecho de que los instrumentos de recuperación de plusvalías se contemplen en la legislación ocupó el tercer lugar (21,4 por ciento). Como era de esperar, los encuestados de Brasil y Colombia respondieron que la razón legal por imponer la recuperación de plusvalías era la más importante (27 por ciento y 31,6 por ciento, respectivamente), frente a los encuestados de otros países (15,2 por ciento en promedio).

Es de hacer notar que el 41,8 por ciento de los encuestados de Argentina, Chile, México y Perú, países que todavía están luchando por promulgar una legislación nacional sobre la recuperación de plusvalías, clasificaron la “necesidad de establecer el fundamento” más alto que otros encuestados. En contraste, los encuestados de Colombia clasificaron esta respuesta en tercer lugar. Las razones dadas por los encuestados de otros grupos de países no son significativamente distintas al promedio de la muestra (31,8 por ciento). Del 11 por ciento de los encuestados que se opusieron a las políticas de recuperación de plusvalías, los argumentos legales y de legitimidad fueron más importantes que los pragmáticos (ilegitimidad de la política o costos administrativos y judiciales).

Lo conocido frente a lo desconocido

En toda América Latina hay leyes que respaldan las contribuciones de valorización, y los gobiernos locales frecuentemente cuentan con esta fuente de ingresos en sus presupuestos. No obstante, estos ingresos son generalmente modestos y rara vez sobrepasan el 1 por ciento de los ingresos locales en la mayoría de los lugares, salvo en Colombia y, en menor medida, en ciertas ciudades con experiencia en el uso de este instrumento, como Cuenca, Ecuador y San Pedro Sula, Honduras, y en algunas jurisdicciones del estado de Paraná. En contraste, la venta de derechos de edificabilidad, todavía se está estableciendo como herramienta de recuperación de plusvalías y sólo está legislada en unos pocos países.

También se pidió a los encuestados que expresaran su preferencia entre las contribuciones de valorización (la herramienta familiar de recuperación de plusvalía que no tiene buen rendimiento) y la venta de derechos de edificabilidad (el nuevo instrumento con mayor potencial de generar ingresos). En todos los países, los resultados muestran un mayor respaldo a las contribuciones de valorización: 59 por ciento frente al 41 por ciento.

Incluso entre los encuestados de Brasil, único país en que la venta de derechos de edificabilidad fue significativamente mayor al promedio (48,9 por ciento), las contribuciones de valorización siguen siendo la herramienta preferida de recuperación de plusvalías (51,1 por ciento). Esto es llamativo, dado el éxito de São Paulo en la generación de ingresos considerables por la venta de derechos de edificabilidad. Por ejemplo, la subasta de abril de 2012 de Certificados de Potencial Adicional de Construcción (CEPAC) en São Paulo agregó US$420 millones a las arcas públicas, además de los 2.500 millones de dólares de las subastas anteriores (Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo 2012).

Los resultados de la encuesta sugieren que la mayoría de los encuestados no son conscientes de la diferencia en el potencial de ingresos entre estas dos herramientas de recuperación de plusvalías. De hecho, sólo el 10 por ciento de los encuestados citó el potencial de ingresos municipales como razón principal para preferir una opción sobre la otra. Los partidarios de la recuperación de plusvalías otorgan mayor prioridad a promover la equidad que a generar ingresos, otro resultado sorprendente, dado el potencial de la recuperación de plusvalías para fortalecer la autonomía municipal.

Cuando se preguntó cómo caracterizarían los argumentos a favor de la recuperación de plusvalías, los encuestados de 2011 podían elegir entre 50 términos relacionados con los atributos de la política de suelo. Los ocho términos que recibieron mayor cantidad de respuestas (el 49,7 por ciento del total) estaban relacionados con temas de equidad, tales como cargos y beneficios, redistribución, función social de la propiedad, lucha contra la especulación, equidad y justicia social. La única excepción fue un término financiero, que ocupó el cuarto lugar.

En contraste, términos como autonomía fiscal, armonía fiscal, descentralización, impuesto, autosuficiencia, financiamiento y recursos adicionales recibieron sólo el 18,7 por ciento de los votos, mientras que términos relacionados con el funcionamiento de los mercados urbanos, como eficiencia y disciplina del mercado, recibieron sólo el 11 por ciento. Los argumentos contra la recuperación de plusvalías se asociaron con términos como impuesto, carga fiscal, derechos adquiridos y doble tributación, y también con abuso, violación de derechos e ilegitimidad.

Los encuestados de ambas encuestas citaron la legitimidad ética y sociopolítica como razón principal para preferir una herramienta de recuperación de plusvalías a otra. En efecto, el 59 por ciento de los encuestados que prefieren las contribuciones de valorización sobre la venta de derechos de edificabilidad mencionaron la legitimidad ética y sociopolítica como la razón más importante. El 41 por ciento de los encuestados que prefieren la venta de derechos de edificabilidad dio las mismas razones para su preferencia. Al mismo tiempo, el 24,4 por ciento de los encuestados que prefieren los derechos de edificabilidad consideraron que la segunda razón más importante era la capacidad para generar ingresos, pero sólo el 17,6 por ciento de los encuestados que prefieren las contribuciones de valorización compartieron la misma opinión.

En definitiva, esto sugiere que las autoridades en América Latina normalmente toleran bien una distancia amplia entre el principio de equidad-legitimidad y la generación de ingresos, basándose en la percepción de que las contribuciones de valorización son más fáciles de imponer desde el punto de vista técnico. Desde otra perspectiva, parecen preferir el camino más rápido de la superioridad moral que el que conduce a mayores ingresos locales.

La importancia de la experiencia

Después de la legitimidad ética y sociopolítica, la siguiente razón más importante para preferir un instrumento de recuperación de plusvalías en particular varía según al nivel de experiencia del encuestado. Una confirmación sólida de la importancia de la experiencia de implementación proviene de los países que han aplicado las herramientas: los colombianos prefieren las contribuciones de valorización, pero los brasileños, la venta de derechos de edificabilidad.

Colombia posee gran cantidad de experiencia en las contribuciones de valorización, lo cual explica por qué el 16 por ciento de los encuestados de dicho país citan la facilidad técnica de la implementación como razón para elegir esta herramienta. En comparación, sólo el 7,9 por ciento de los encuestados de otros países menciona esa razón. Por su parte, el 12,6 por ciento de los encuestados de Brasil prefiere la venta de derechos de edificabilidad debido a la facilidad de implementación, en comparación con sólo el 5 por ciento de los encuestados de otros países. Estos resultados ponen de manifiesto hasta qué punto la experiencia influye en las opiniones sobre las restricciones técnicas de las herramientas de recuperación de plusvalías.

Obstáculos a la implementación

Los encuestados de 2012 atribuyen la renuencia de las autoridades públicas a aplicar políticas de recuperación de plusvalías fundamentalmente a la falta de información (23,2 por ciento) y al riesgo político (22,5 por ciento). Otras explicaciones son la complicidad con los intereses relacionados con los propietarios (18,4 por ciento) y las dificultades técnicas de implementación (15,4 por ciento). Muy pocos consideran que la falta de legislación sea un factor importante para que no se usen instrumentos de recuperación de plusvalías (1,5 por ciento), y los motivos ideológicos (3,2 por ciento) y los costos administrativos (3,8 por ciento) están muy poco por encima de los anteriores.

Las razones pragmáticas son importantes sólo para los encuestados de países que no tienen una experiencia significativa con estas herramientas. Mientras que el 13 por ciento de los encuestados de Brasil y Colombia citan las dificultades de implementación técnica como obstáculo principal, el 31 por ciento de los encuestados de otros países citan la misma razón en promedio. Esto refuerza la conclusión de que la experiencia en herramientas de recuperación de plusvalías es un factor importante. Los brasileños explican por qué no se usan los instrumentos de recuperación de plusvalías en términos de intereses del suelo y riesgos políticos, que suman en conjunto un 59 por ciento de las respuestas. Entre los colombianos, el 26 por ciento no ve ninguna razón para no usar los instrumentos de recuperación de plusvalías. Esta es una proporción mucho más alta que las respuestas de otros países (7,2 por ciento en promedio), lo que indica que en Colombia existe una percepción de que las herramientas están recibiendo la atención que se merecen.

Identificación de las partes interesadas clave

La encuesta de 2012 pidió a los encuestados que seleccionaran qué actores involucrados en el debate deberían recibir atención prioritaria para superar la resistencia a las políticas de recuperación de plusvalías. A la cabeza de la lista están los directivos de las áreas ejecutivas de gobierno, como alcaldes y directores, seguido de los miembros de las legislaturas, incluyendo miembros del congreso y los diputados municipales (tabla 3). Los urbanistas — quienes frecuentemente se encuentran a la vanguardia de las operaciones políticas — ocuparon el tercer lugar.

Sorprendentemente, sólo el 6,2 por ciento de los encuestados citaron a los miembros del ámbito judicial (jueces, abogados y fiscales), aun cuando sean los tribunales los que frecuentemente bloquean las iniciativas de recuperación de plusvalías. Los encuestados de Brasil fueron los únicos en asignar una importancia mayor a los miembros del ámbito judicial. En consonancia con los avances institucionales que sus países han realizado en el campo de recuperación de plusvalías, tanto los encuestados de Brasil como los de Colombia dieron menor prioridad a los legisladores (20,7 por ciento) que los encuestados de otros países (32,3 por ciento en promedio).

Los encuestados de todos los grupos profesionales clasificaron en último lugar a los académicos y periodistas. En consecuencia, la estrategia de capacitar a los capacitadores parecería ser contraproducente, en la medida en que no se considera a los académicos como actores importantes para reducir la resistencia a las políticas de recuperación de plusvalías. Este resultado respalda el enfoque del programa del Instituto Lincoln sobre la construcción de capacidad entre las autoridades públicas directamente involucradas en el debate político o la implementación de herramientas, en vez de construir capacidad en las escuelas de graduados. La baja prioridad dada a los periodistas como destinatarios de capacitación es desconcertante, pero puede ser un reflejo de que el debate sobre la recuperación de plusvalías sigue estando confinado fundamentalmente a las entidades públicas y los círculos académicos. De todas maneras, una mayor participación de los medios podría tener una influencia positiva en la ampliación del debate.

Otro resultado interesante de la encuesta es que las respuestas de los diversos grupos son relativamente homogéneas. La profesión, filiación institucional, lugar de empleo, nivel de educación e incluso el tamaño de la ciudad del encuestado suponen poca diferencia. En efecto, sólo la distinción entre encuestados de países con y sin experiencia significativa en la recuperación de plusvalías parece ser importante.

Conclusiones

Los resultados de la encuesta apuntan a una comprensión relativamente homogénea del estado del debate y la implementación de recuperación de plusvalías en América Latina. Sin embargo, el pronóstico para implementar políticas exitosas de recuperación de plusvalías en la región, es menos claro. La retórica de justicia social parece prevalecer incluso entre sus partidarios “informados”. Además, las autoridades que se encuentran en puestos ejecutivos y con capacidad de decisión parecen estar mal informados o carecen de voluntad política. Más aún; como demuestran las experiencias de Brasil y Colombia, el proceso de institucionalización de políticas de recuperación de plusvalías supone un proceso de ensayo y error que tarda tiempo en tener éxito.

Se pueden extraer tres lecciones del trabajo efectuado por el Instituto Lincoln sobre la recuperación de plusvalías en América Latina. Primero, los incrementos en el valor del suelo se pueden recuperar más exitosamente de los actores específicos que reciben el mayor beneficio de una intervención del sector público que de la comunidad en general (la condición de ganancias para ambos) Segundo, las herramientas de recuperación de plusvalías tienen una mayor probabilidad de éxito cuando se conciben para resolver un problema local reconocido que cuando tratan de emular unas supuestas buenas prácticas.

Tercero, es esencial reforzar la legitimidad de las políticas de recuperación de plusvalías. Esto se puede conseguir dando publicidad de proyectos exitosos, sobre todo en países en que las iniciativas de recuperación de plusvalías todavía son aisladas y esporádicas. Es importante trasladar el debate sobre la recuperación de plusvalías de la retórica ideológica y bien intencionada a un contexto más técnico y práctico, fundamentado en la comprobación de que es posible implementarlo y, más importante aún, en que se ha implementado ya de forma efectiva en muchos casos.

Sobre el autor

Martim O. Smolka es senior fellow y director del Programa de América Latina y el Caribe del Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Ha estado investigando políticas y experiencias de recuperación de plusvalías durante muchos años.

Referencias

Borrero Ochoa, Oscar. 2011. Betterment levy in Colombia: Relevance, procedures, and social acceptability. Land Lines 23(2): 14-19.

Borrero Ochoa, Oscar, Esperanza Durán, Jorge Hernández, and Magda Montaña. 2011. Evaluating the practice of betterment levies in Colombia: The experience of Bogotá and Manizales. Working Paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Sandroni, Paulo Henrique. 2011. Recent experience with land value capture in São Paulo, Brazil. Land Lines 23(3): 14-19.

São Paulo Stock Exchange. 2012. http://www.bmfbovespa.com.br/pt-br/mercados/download/Agua-Suplemento-27012012.pdf