Opinion – Claudio Bernardes: The Urban Intervention Project in downtown SP could become a major fiasco

There were many initiatives to revitalize downtown São Paulo, among them the Operação Urbana Centro, whose law was enacted in June 1997 and contained a series of incentives for investments to take place in that area. However, incentives are necessary, but not sufficient to induce a significant transformation in a given region, if there are not the necessary attractions to motivate these investments.

This was the case in the central region. Twenty-five years after the enactment of the law that generated these incentives, without an adequate project for the recovery of the area and without the necessary public investments, very little progress was made towards the revitalization of the center. Many problems are still present and others have worsened, such as the spread of drug users and the increase of homeless people, which leverage a negative cycle of worsening urban quality, and deterioration of the region.

To try to resolve this issue, a bill authored by the Executive called PIU Setor Central is being processed by the São Paulo City Council, which has already been approved in the first vote. However, this project goes in the opposite direction of what would be necessary to encourage the recovery of the center, generating resources for investment and consolidating a positive cycle of development.

The proposal, as it is formulated, could cause the Central Sector PIU to become a major fiasco. Instead of encouraging and fostering development, it can create stagnation in the region, and a consequent increase in the speed of deterioration, which can condemn the city center to oblivion and abandonment for many years.

In the region of the historic center, and perimeter of the current Operação Urbana Centro, even though the acquisition of construction potential is free today, with many difficulties, and in a proportionately reduced number, projects have been implemented. However, the proposed legislation, instead of creating incentives, discourages investments in the region, determining the collection of onerous grants in these areas. In addition, at values ​​that will certainly make new ventures unfeasible.

In other sectors of the intervention project, in complete contradiction, it is proposed to charge for constructive potential, in amounts that exceed those charged for the acquisition of the same potential in immediately neighboring regions. This obviously discourages the acquisition of land in the region covered by the project.

It is completely incongruous that the area covered by the expanded perimeter of the PIU Setor Central, which includes degraded regions lacking development, such as part of Brás, Pari, Canindé, Bom Retiro and part of Barra Funda, and that urgently need to be revitalized, have planning factors (Fp) – a parameter that directly influences the cost of acquiring construction potential – well above those of more qualified and consolidated regions of the city.

The model for charging for construction potential in a deteriorated region will only be implemented if there are public investments and incentive mechanisms in place for the region to develop and generate the attractiveness necessary to justify charging for this potential. Without it, there will be no collection or development.

The bill, on the other hand, does not address a problem that greatly hinders the development of the region, the envelopes of heritage sites. These envelopes, whose restrictions have greatly hindered the development of the region, represent more than 40% of the areas located in Sé, República, Bom Retiro and Santa Cecília. It is absolutely essential that clear rules are developed, automatically applicable, and adopted uniformly by all the conservation agencies involved, Conpresp, Condephaat and Iphan. Certainly, it is essential to preserve the historical and cultural heritage, but the inadequate regulation of the use of its surroundings, and its application, can make the development of the region unfeasible, with the consequent degradation of the listed property itself.

Even more serious, the project proposes that these regulations, many of them clearly wrong, be in force for 20 years, without revision, relegating the fact that the city is a living and dynamic organism, which requires periodic reassessment and monitoring of its development processes. .

Therefore, a warning to society is in order. If approved as it is, the PIU Setor Central bill will in no way help the revitalization of the downtown area. On the contrary, it will make its development very difficult.