Review of SP Master Plan divides urban planners on topics and deadline

The review of the PDE (Strategic Master Plan) of the capital of São Paulo was scheduled to take place in 2021, but had its deadline extended to the end of July this year because of the pandemic. For urban planners, it’s still a short time.

The SMUL (Municipal Department of Urban Planning and Licensing) says, in a note, that the city hall has completed important steps in 2021 and resumes the debates at an advanced stage.

However, for Simone Gatti, urban planner, professor at Escola da Cidade and member of the CMPU (Municipal Council for Urban Policy), the review process has not actually started, which results in six months to analyze data, hold meetings with residents, receive proposals and prepare the text. “It’s unfeasible,” she says.

SMUL has already released a monitoring of the PDE and reported that 68% of the planned urban instruments were implemented. For Gatti, these data still need to be analyzed.

The secretariat affirms that the released report uses “the most current data available from different sources” to draw a picture of the application of the plan, and that it will present a diagnosis that will contribute to the formulation of the revision proposals.

The PDE has rules and incentives to direct construction. The general lines of the current plan, from 2014, encourage the densification of transport axes —regions that have infrastructure with subways, trains and/or bus lanes—, in order to reduce the distance between home and work and discourage the use of the car.

The first step in the review is to define what can be changed, a task started this month.

Representatives of the real estate market and urban planners agree on one point: the PDE’s intention is good, but its application has distortions.

According to Claudio Bernardes, columnist for sheet and vice-president of Secovi-SP (Housing Union), the current rules for construction in transport hub regions force the creation of many equal units, which distort the market.

The result would be very small apartments, for a high rate of use of the land, but expensive. Data from Secovi-SP show that 76% of the new units launched in the city in 2021 had up to 45 m².

According to Alberto Ajzental, coordinator of the Real Estate Business Development course at FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas), the transport hub regions of the capital could be treated in a more segmented manner, with rules that vary according to the characteristics of the neighborhoods. Areas outside these axes could also have more permissive requirements, including higher limits on building heights.

“The rich exist, you will not take away the rich [da cidade]. The middle class exists, it needs to live,” he says.

Ajzental also criticizes the incentives for active façades, buildings where the ground floor is destined for commerce. According to him, there is no demand for so many stores.

Bianca Tavolari, a lawyer and creator of Insper’s Observatory for the Review of the Master Plan of São Paulo, has another perspective. She says that the problem is the lack of incentives for cheaper housing on transport routes.

“Did the policy of increasing density where there is consolidated transport work equally everywhere? It’s one thing to do with Pinheiros, Vila Madalena, but what about on the periphery?”, asks Tavolari.

Laisa Stroher, a researcher linked to LabCidade, from the FAU-USP (Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism), analyzes that there is a lack of control over who is living in housing built with incentives from the municipality to produce housing of social interest.

Stroher says that the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, and the evictions that took place in the period, deepened the population density in the periphery and the increase in the homeless population.

SMUL states that there is a decree that establishes criteria for the commercialization of housing units of social interest, such as the notes of Construction Permits, in which the owner is obliged to commercialize the units as established in the Master Plan.

It also says that all housing units delivered through Sehab (Municipal Housing Department) are intended for families in range 1 (who receive up to three minimum wages) and that, since 2017, more than 32,000 affordable housing has been delivered.

Nabil Bonduki, a professor at FAU-USP, rapporteur for the 2014 PDE and columnist for Folha, criticizes the energy spent on the discussion around the revision of the plan, instead of dedicating it to complying with the measures already defined.

For him, the government did little to create more housing of social interest and did not fully use the municipal resources reserved for this purpose, which could be used, for example, in the purchase of idle land or properties.

The secretary’s justification for the unused resources is that it was an action planned to wait for the regulation of the PodeEnter housing program, which should take place in March.

The ministry states that these amounts “will be used to produce their own home for families without proof of income or who do not have access to the banking system.” The program will also allow the purchase of properties from the private sector.

The experts consulted by sheet state that there is a risk of judicialization of the review process, which would hinder compliance with the stipulated deadline.

The clashes have already started. Last year, the city government hired the FDTE (Fundation for the Technological Development of Engineering) to diagnose the progress of the PDE, without bidding, for R$ 3.5 million.

Guilherme Boulos and the collective Bancada Feminista (PSOL), with a mandate in the City Council, filed a popular action against the contract, questioning the lack of bidding. The contract was suspended by the state court in August.

In October, the CMPU, a body that brings together members of the city hall and civil society, approved that the deadline for the review be postponed to December 2022, being extendable until the end of 2023. The City Council preferred, however, to give a period of six months for the changes.

Simone Gatti, from the CMPU, says that the majority of civil society representatives in the body consider the July deadline “in disagreement”. She says she is concerned about the fact that the city’s residents have only one week, between March 7 and 11, to debate the PDE’s diagnosis, “which so far does not exist”.

Gatti also criticizes the fact that the debate will only take place via the internet this week, “which limits the participation of the population residing in the periphery, with great limitations to digital access”.

SMUL says that the schedule and methodology that were approved ensure the debate with society in different channels, such as consultations and public hearings, without prejudice to the participatory process”.

For Bernardes, from Secovi-SP, a possible new postponement would be bad news for the city. “It’s possible to find the best solution within the level of information we have at the moment, what we can’t do is do nothing”, he says.

Urban planners disagree. For them, revising the PDE without really understanding how it is being applied can worsen the city’s problems and distort even more the ideals of São Paulo’s politics.

“I believe that, if a judicialization occurs, it is because the process is not being done correctly and is not meeting the public interest, or not guaranteeing broad participation of society”, says Gatti.

The State Public Ministry informed, in a meeting with the municipal secretary of urban planning and licensing, Marcos Duque Gadelho, on the 9th, that the six-month deadline for the delivery of the plan cannot serve for the municipality to run over procedures and restrict the effective popular participation, and that, if there is a need to extend the legal term, it is available to prepare a term of adjustment of conduct.

Review schedule

February

• Constitution of a working group with members of the CMPU (Municipal Council for Urban Policy) and the SMUL (Municipal Department of Urban Planning and Licensing) to define the limits of the revision of the PDE (Strategic Master Plan) and detail the methods of participation by society

March

• Presentation of the Master Plan Monitoring Report
• Diagnosis and selection of priority topics for the PDE review
• Virtual themed meetings on the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11/3
• Public consultation on the Participa+ platform, throughout the review
• Feedback from thematic meetings on 3/24

End of March to May

• Collective formulation of proposals for the review of the PDE
• Regional workshops, on 3/26 and 4/2, 9 and 4/30
• Return activity on 5/14

June 

• Drafting of the revision bill
• Regional public hearings to present the initial draft, on 6/1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10
• Online participatory draft
• Hearing with presentation of the final draft, on 6/31

Source: SMUL