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The Lincoln Institute mourns the sudden death of Ignacio Madrazo, a member of the Board of Directors from 1991 to 1997, who perished in a helicopter crash near Cuernavaca, Mexico, in August. Madrazo was head of state investments for the state of Morelos, Mexico. He brought to the Institute his knowledge of Latin American land policy and taxation issues, and he assisted in the creation and development of the Latin America program. He leaves his wife, Luz Lajous, and two sons, Luis and Alejandro.
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Q. You have been at the helm of the Lincoln Institute since May 1. What aspect of the program has captured most of your attention in the past few months?
A. My first task has been to work with the staff to develop a more focused direction for the Institute’s programs over the next several years. Without question, we are going to continue the Institute’s commitment to quality research, education and publications programs. We want to both raise the level of debate through our research and publications and also meet our educational objective of directly helping public and private decisionmakers improve their understanding of land-related issues.
To both sharpen and narrow our program focus, we have identified three substantive areas or clusters where we will concentrate our efforts:
Q. Can you elaborate on these topics?
A. Sure, although it is hard to do so in a few words. We are still working on the language to better describe these important areas of inquiry.
In the area of taxation of land and buildings, we are interested in the special nature of taxes on real property, particularly those based on market value. We address the economic effects of such taxes, their legal structure and interpretation, especially with regard to valuation. We are also interested in political aspects of implementing property taxes, particularly as instruments of fiscal decentralization. Our work provides practical assistance to policymakers dealing with existing tax systems and also explores current tax reform efforts around this country and overseas.
In the area of land values, property rights and ownership, we consider the elements that determine land value and what portion of that value may properly be claimed by various sectors of society, including the public sphere. This focus area, therefore, touches upon the larger issue of property rights, the operations of formal and informal land markets in creating and distributing land value, and methods for recovering the costs of public investment in land.
In the area of land use and regulation, we focus on the process, plans and policies that affect the development of land, especially in urban “fringe” areas most at risk from changing land uses. We also investigate issues around the reuse of vacant and underutilized land and the conservation of undeveloped land. While we are interested in the economic efficiency of the use of land, we take a more comprehensive perspective for evaluating land use and its regulation. We seek to understand how the development, reuse and conservation of land affect other public values and goals, such as access to land, fairness, the character of society and the quality of life.
Q. How do you implement specific programs to address these issues?
A. The Institute has three major program components, each of which is involved with all three focus areas. Through our research program, we support scholarly projects to improve our understanding of land and taxation issues and to develop new ideas that integrate theory and practice. The education program presents courses, conferences, seminars and policy discussion workshops taught by scholars and practitioners with varied academic backgrounds and professional expertise. The publications program develops and produces newsletters, books, policy focus reports, working papers, and other media to communicate the results of our own research and education programs and the work of other colleagues in the field of land policy.
Q. Who are your major constituents and how do you reach them?
A. The Institute’s major constituents are public officials and other citizens who are actively involved in making decisions about the taxation, regulation and use of land. As an educational institution, we bring together varying viewpoints to expand the body of useful knowledge about land and tax policy and to make that knowledge accessible and comprehensible. Our objective is to provide practical assistance to policymakers, while at the same time exploring alternative approaches, both in the U.S. and internationally.
We are in the process of establishing advisory groups composed of scholars and practitioners to help us continue to refine the three focus areas. They will offer valuable assistance in guiding and evaluating the collaborative research, education and publications programs in each area. We are also developing a more focused approach to outreach and marketing. This will benefit individual courses and publications, as well as our overall goal of sharing ideas and resources through a growing variety of face-to-face meetings and electronic opportunities, such as our World Wide Web Home Page and other multi-media delivery systems.
Q. Looking forward to the Lincoln Institute’s 25th anniversary in 1999, how would you characterize the organization’s mission for the twenty-first century?
A. The Institute owes its existence to two visionaries who came of age in the late nineteenth century, Henry George and John C. Lincoln. George was an economist and social philosopher best known for his book, Progress and Poverty, in which he argued that the ownership, use and taxation of land has far-reaching effects on economic growth, social relations and politics. His work captured the attention of Cleveland industrialist John C. Lincoln, who established the Lincoln Foundation in 1947 to support further study and inquiry into George’s ideas.
Many of the problems that George decried in the late nineteenth century are still with us at the end of the twentieth. This summer I commissioned eight scholars to review George’s writings and document his insights on land use and taxation problems in terms of their relevance for the next century. We will report more on this research in subsequent issues of Land Lines.
It is my hope that all of us connected with the Institute–Board members, staff, research and faculty associates, and the policymakers and citizens whom we reach through our education and publications programs–can make progress on understanding contemporary issues of property valuation, taxation and land use. In the process we will fulfill our mission of contributing to the ongoing debate over land and tax policies that can benefit all sectors of society.
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Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 1 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.
En los últimos años, el Instituto Lincoln ha venido colaborando con el programa de becas Loeb, el cual tiene sede en la Escuela de Posgrado en Diseño de la Universidad de Harvard. Este programa se inició en 1970 gracias a la generosidad de John L. Loeb, egresado de Harvard, con la finalidad de permitir que profesionales de mediana trayectoria cursaran estudios independientes y adquirieran herramientas adicionales dirigidas a la reactivación del medio ambiente natural y urbano. Los becarios de Loeb para el período 2001-2002 hicieron un viaje de fin de año a Cuba a mediados de junio, que incluía una estancia de dos días en Santiago de Cuba, cuatro en La Habana y un recorrido adicional desde esta última hasta Trinidad, con paradas en algunos destinos intermedios.
Con sus fachadas neoclásicas, adoquines blancos, nubes caribeñas y tonos pasteles, Trinidad se ha detenido en el tiempo como una postal de acuarela. Puesto que el patrimonio arquitectónico de Cuba es el núcleo de un creciente interés internacional y no está amenazado por las oleadas de nuevas construcciones, el futuro del pasado parece estar a salvo. Por su parte, el futuro en sí mismo es mucho más difícil de hallar. Mientras nuestro grupo de becarios de Loeb buscaba indicios en tres ciudades y localidades de la provincia, descubrimos que pese al estancamiento económico y la tensión política internacional los cubanos trabajan con esmero por un futuro que sólo pertenece a ellos.
La afluencia de dólares provenientes del turismo y una férrea campaña de preservación cubana han comenzado a rescatar las riquezas de La Habana Vieja de las garras del descuido no intencionado. Después de por lo menos una experiencia negativa con una nueva construcción, la Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad –encargada de coordinar la impresionante restauración y renovación mayor de La Habana Vieja– todavía trata de resolver el problema de integrar lo nuevo con lo histórico. Una manera de abordar el problema es estudiar minuciosamente el diseño de edificaciones que ocupan una manzana. Caminamos por un estacionamiento grande de estructura moderna dentro de La Habana Vieja que será reconstruido para convertirlo en un edificio de uso múltiple, con un estacionamiento adyacente, según un diseño que busca reproducir la escala y algunos rasgos monumentales del convento colonial que una vez ocupaba el lugar.
Aunque se está reubicando a algunos residentes en la misma zona y otras partes, muchos regresan a sus hogares después de que los barrios son rehabilitados.
Considerado ahora como un modelo para otras iniciativas dirigidas a financiar la rehabilitación de otros distritos de la ciudad, la renovación de La Habana Vieja se fundamenta en un sistema de impuestos y empresas conjuntas que comprende ingresos provenientes de empresas privadas que se benefician del turismo generado por la restauración. La Oficina del Historiador maneja un presupuesto anual de 50 millones de dólares que se divide entre la construcción y la asistencia social a los cubanos que residen dentro de los límites de la zona de rehabilitación. Esto podría interpretarse como un sistema de “recuperación de plusvalías”, tema que suscita gran interés en el Instituto Lincoln.
Julio César Pérez, arquitecto cubano, urbanista y defensor de la planificación con base en la comunidad, era uno de los integrantes del grupo de becarios de Loeb. Gracias a la perspectiva particular que tiene por ser profesional local, mostró a nuestro grupo algunos de sus ejemplos favoritos del rico legado de la arquitectura prerrevolucionaria art deco y moderna de La Habana. Joyas de cinco pisos de altura se destacan en medio del variopinto paisaje urbano de La Habana central, que también incluye el Edificio Focsa de 28 pisos, con sus 375 unidades de apartamentos, construido en el ocaso del gobierno de Batista.
A los talones de las manzanas de viviendas y casinos con estilo internacional de los años 1950, la revolución implantó su propia forma de uso revisado del suelo. Julio contó la historia de un partido de golf que jugaron el Che Guevara y Fidel Castro en los vastos campos del antiguo Habana Country Club para celebrar la revolución. Según la leyenda, se preguntaron: “¿cómo podemos darle un buen uso a este terreno?” Los resultados de su conversación son las muy grandilocuentes y en su mayoría inconclusas Escuelas Nacionales de Arte diseñadas por Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garratti y Roberto Gottardi. La postura de estas edificaciones es deliberadamente indiferente a la casa club o al plan del campo de golf; el área abierta es tratada como si fuera una enorme pradera en medio de territorio virgen. Está previsto un proyecto de restauración de los edificios, que se ha complicado más debido a la inestabilidad de las fundaciones y los problemas hidrológicos.
Julio también identificó ejemplos más recientes de construcciones de grandes dimensiones en La Habana, como son el Hotel Meliá Cohíba con su voluminoso arco incorporado y el Miramar Trade Center, un centro comercial (con transacciones en dólares) al otro lado de la calle. Además de ser fracasos de diseño, estos costosos proyectos no logran captar la relación del sitio con el mar ni la posibilidad de crear un nuevo género arquitectónico en un distrito en desarrollo.
Con el estancamiento de la economía y de las relaciones internacionales en los años 1990, el arquitecto y planificador cubano Miguel Coyula y sus colegas han utilizado el tiempo y los materiales que tienen a su alcance para adoptar un enfoque más cuidadoso del uso y desarrollo del suelo. Mientras en todo el mundo hay un surgimiento acelerado y avasallante de ciudades verticales de acero y vidrio, en La Habana se construye una de las maquetas de mayor escala en el mundo con cajas viejas de habanos. Esta asombrosa ciudad en miniatura fue concebida como herramienta para la planificación y asidero para los esfuerzos del Grupo para el Desarrollo Integral de la Capital (GDIC), que ha asesorado al gobierno municipal en asuntos de planificación urbana desde 1988.
La maqueta 1:1000 de toda La Habana ha ido creciendo por piezas exactas durante la mayor parte de la última década y actualmente ocupa 112 metros cuadrados, es decir, aproximadamente una cuarta parte de una cancha de baloncesto. Se encuentra en un pabellón especialmente diseñado iluminado con luz natural en el área de Miramar, cercano al centro de la ciudad, donde los visitantes ocasionales pueden circular cómodamente alrededor de la maqueta y verla desde los niveles superiores de acceso con rampas. En la base topográfica de madera hay colocados modelos a escala de prácticamente todas las estructuras de la ciudad. Cada edificio está codificado por un color que indica el desarrollo urbano en cada período histórico: colonial, moderno prerrevolucionario (1900 a 1958) y posrevolucionario.
Miguel describe un proyecto de construcción, un edificio alto para el Comité Estatal de Colaboración Económica (CECE), que fue cancelado porque con la maqueta se pudo ver claramente que era desproporcionado para el resto de la arquitectura del centro de La Habana. La decisión parece haber sido un hito ya que se trataba de un proyecto real y también ha sido ejemplo de la determinación de construir con conciencia por el medio ambiente –pese a las presiones para dar cabida a inversionistas foráneos en una Cuba necesitada de ingresos–.
La misión fundamental del GDIC se asemeja mucho a la que se plantean los planificadores estadounidenses para el urbanismo dentro de las grandes ciudades: comenzar por los vecindarios. El grupo ha realizado una serie de “talleres integrales de transformación del barrio” ofrecidos a los residentes locales y dirigidos por diseñadores y planificadores profesionales, preferentemente que habiten en la misma área. Estos proyectos se inscriben en la misma tendencia del movimiento internacional de diseño comunitario, una tradición vinculada a los Estados Unidos y surgida hace 45 años en la cual los diseñadores trabajan directamente para el beneficio de los residentes de un área determinada. Desde que la depresión económica sobrevenida en los años 1990 después de la disolución de la Unión Soviética y el bloqueo impuesto por los Estados Unidos comenzaron a tener efectos realmente adversos en Cuba, estos talleres han cobrado gran importancia. Han conjugado la planificación y el desarrollo económico en un nuevo contexto local, en el que los vecindarios emprenden diversos proyectos, como son los cultivos urbanos y la manufactura de materiales de construcción a partir del reciclaje de escombros.
Los talleres de transformación del barrio y otras iniciativas similares llevadas a cabo en los últimos 20 años han contribuido a crear un puente entre el precepto revolucionario cubano de igualdad de tratamiento para todos y el precepto humano básico de tomar decisiones sobre la familia, la comunidad y la vida cotidiana. Otro ejemplo lo constituye el proyecto Arquitectos de la Comunidad, una modalidad de diseño comunitario a cargo de un sector cívico nacional que participa en la construcción urbana y la planificación ambiental, además de ofrecer servicios asequibles de diseño para familias individuales. Basada en las teorías del arquitecto argentino Rodolfo Livingston, la práctica fomenta una relación directa entre el usuario y el arquitecto, a la vez que se incorpora en cada proyecto de construcción el concepto de sostenibilidad y sensibilidad contextual. Julio trabajó con el grupo durante cinco años antes de irse a Harvard y presentó una ponencia junto con Kathleen Dorgan, también becaria de Loeb, en la conferencia de la Asociación de Escuelas y Facultades de Arquitectura celebrada en la primavera pasada. Como defensor de un uso más humano y sensato del suelo y del diseño urbano en su país, Julio se cuenta entre un grupo de arquitectos cubanos preocupados por los valores tradicionales del oficio y el diseño idóneo para el medio ambiente.
Con la existencia de esfuerzos como éstos, tenemos esperanza para que en el futuro la construcción se fundamente en una calibración cuidadosa de relaciones proporcionadas y bien reflexionadas entre las edificaciones y los rasgos naturales del entorno, así como la comodidad y placer de los usuarios. El desafío radica en encontrar medios económicos y normativos para apoyar una modalidad apropiada de construcción. Hasta ahora, el estado ha mantenido el control sobre el uso del suelo gracias a su condición de propietario directo y casi exclusivo y ha hecho negociaciones de arrendamiento con algunos inversionistas privados y foráneos a través de una red delicada y sumamente frágil de fórmulas económicas y jurídicas para valorar los terrenos en cuestión. A medida que la economía se hace más dependiente de los recursos provenientes del exterior, aumenta la probabilidad de que estos arrendamientos devengan en transacciones más predecibles y transparentes. Tal vez no tardarán en llegar las ventas de tierras y la aplicación de mayores impuestos.
Con la llegada de inversiones extranjeras y las presiones para una apertura aún mayor, habrá plena oportunidad de que el futuro esté constreñido por decisiones sobre el uso del suelo impulsadas por los márgenes de ganancias de organizaciones distantes, lo que sería una lamentable añadidura a la carga histórica de Cuba. Porque, a pesar de la belleza de sus paisajes naturales y urbanos, Cuba es un mapa de victimización: a causa del colonialismo, de la flagrante explotación económica, de la confrontación revolucionaria y del brutal desarrollo al estilo soviético.
Los becarios de Loeb captaron una perspectiva general de un nacionalismo intenso construido sobre una cultura profunda y diversa, una historia cosmopolita y los logros incuestionables de los últimos 40 años. Cuba es un lugar de grandes penurias y también de enorme potencial, para los cubanos mismos y para el resto del mundo. Esperamos que el futuro no albergue solamente explotación y degradación cultural cuando finalmente caigan las barreras para el comercio y el viaje internacional. También esperamos demostrar que Cuba es un lugar para aprender de los errores del pasado –los suyos y los nuestros– y para descubrir lo que es posible cuando la gente tiene libertad para proteger, respetar y mejorar su entorno.
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Seeking to address housing affordability and transportation congestion issues, the executive directors of the 25 largest public-sector metropolitan regional councils gathered in Los Angeles in September 2003 for their second regional forum. The three-day conference was sponsored by the Lincoln Institute, the Fannie Mae Foundation and the National Association of Regional Councils (NARC).
Case Studies
The opening session featured presentations on three case studies that illustrate different approaches to growth and development: Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles.
The Atlanta region is home to 3.6 million people in 10 counties. Charles Krautler, of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), noted that the commission was created in 1947 and in 1952 presented its first regional plan. “It proposed a tight development pattern with an urban growth boundary close to where I-285 circles our region,” he explained. “It was rejected outright. Instead, we adopted a plan with growth in concentric circles. We did not have unplanned sprawl, we planned for it and we got it.” However, he continued, “now we have two societies. Many people moved to the northern part of the region and took their wealth with them. We encouraged them to trade long drives for big houses. But poverty remains concentrated in Atlanta and Fulton County.”
No slowdown is forecasted for 2030, as the population is expected to grow to 5.4 million people and employment to 3.1 million jobs. That means more congestion, and Atlanta faces other constraints as well. The region is the largest metropolitan area with the smallest water supply, and there is no opportunity for significant expansion of the supply. “If we keep doing what we’re doing, then what we have today is the best its going to be,” Krautler stated. “We’re trying to encourage a movement back to the city. After losing population for the last 30 years, the city has grown by 16,000 since the 2000 census. In a further effort to rewind the sprawl clock, ARC has designated 44 activity/town centers as part of its regional development plan linking transportation and land use. Each center receives planning and, more important, infrastructure resources to concentrate development.”
The Chicago metropolitan area is the “hub of the Midwest,” according to Ron Thomas of the Northeast Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC). With more than 8 million residents in 6 counties with 272 incorporated municipalities, Chicago has built its strength around the waters of Lake Michigan. The NIPC region hosts almost 4.5 million jobs and 62 companies that are listed in the Fortune 1000. The 4,000-square-mile region stretches north to Wisconsin and east to Indiana. And yet, Thomas laments, “our urban growth ‘edge’ is beyond our region. That means that the people who are attempting to control this growth are not at our table.”
Building on the Burnham plan, the first regional plan in the country created in 1909, Chicago’s urban fabric is held together by a series of 200 town centers, an extensive rail network and an expansive highway system. The good news, Thomas said, is that “90 percent of the region’s population is within one mile of a transit line.” Three satellite cities, Elgin, Joliet and Aurora, create a polycentric region around Chicago’s western fringe. The net result is that the region still has the capacity to absorb the projected growth of more than 2 million new people in the next 30 years.
Like every metropolitan region, Chicago is experiencing immigration from all over the world, but especially an influx of Hispanic families. New immigrants enter a region with longstanding socioeconomic patterns of segregation, especially in the southern counties. Thomas explained there are pockets of diversity in some suburban communities, but exclusionary zoning keeps the barriers high. While NIPC has successfully brought together the mayors in the metropolitan area to discuss critical issues, “we suffer from a lack of major universities, most of which are either downtown or 100 miles out,” Thomas noted. “Our political leaders are organized, and so is our business community. However, we run on parallel tracks and talk in stereo.” To address this disconnect, NIPC has created a broad-scale civic leadership process to undertake community-based planning. “We have created a tool called ‘paint the town,’ which allows interactive meetings in local city and town halls,” he continued. “We have a future to plan and it needs to be grounded where the people live, work and raise their families.”
Los Angeles has more than twice as many people as Chicago and more than 4.5 times the population of the Atlanta region, and yet “the urban portion of our region is the densest in the country,” according to Mark Pisano of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). “We have 187 municipalities in 6 counties. With 76 local officials in our structure, our congressional delegation comes to us for solutions to the tough issues we face. We do have a region that is large enough to cover the true regional economy, but the economic and social forces are relentless. Our economic bases are shifting faster than we can plan infrastructure to keep up with the changes.”
Like Chicago and Atlanta, Los Angeles is a polycentric region; it spreads across all of Southern California except San Diego County. “We were one of the first regions in the country to become a majority of minorities. Immigration drives development in our region,” said Pisano. Some of the trends are good. “Forty percent of our region is doing extremely well, but that means that 60 percent is not. We have been called the ‘new Appalachia’ by some, and we are banding together with other states along the border with Mexico to create the Southwest Authority. This, like other similar efforts around the country including the Appalachian Regional Commission, would create a federally supported multistate compact to address critical infrastructure needs required to support the economy of this large area.”
SCAG forecasts another 6 million people will arrive in the region by 2030, more than twice the population of the City of Chicago. As the new immigrants arrive, cities and towns already cramped by the constraints of Proposition 13 are beginning to close the door on new housing production. “Housing is the most undesirable land use in Southern California,” said Pisano. “We are seeing the fiscalization of land use. Our leaders tell me that they don’t want any more housing. They say this is sound fiscal policy. However, this approach just puts more pressure on places that already have housing. The net effect is that Los Angeles is three times more overcrowded than the rest of the region and eight times more crowded than New York City.”
To address these big-picture problems, SCAG is focusing on macro-level regional development patterns. “We can’t build our way out of the traffic congestion, but we have two scenarios under discussion,” Pisano continued. “The first focuses on infill development; the second proposes creation of the fifth ring of development in the high desert. Effective land use will generate three times more benefit than highway expansion.” Using a creative strategy of building truck lanes, paid for by the truckers, “we can create some relief and target key transportation logistics, i.e., moving freight out of the port of Los Angeles into the rest of the country. This strategy also addresses a key workforce issue, since you don’t need a college education to drive a truck. To fund such major infrastructure expansion, we are exploring how to create a tax credit that would allow significant private-sector investment in regional transportation projects.”
Discussion Sessions
Ruben Barrales, deputy assistant to President Bush and director of intergovernmental affairs for the White House, presented an overview of the executive branch’s current national priorities. During the discussion Krautler asked if a White House conference would be a possible response to the critical issues facing the largest metropolitan regions in the country. Barrales said the concept was worth discussing but would require considerable advance preparation to be effective. Pisano offered the resources of the group, working through NARC, to help with conference planning. Robert Yaro of the Regional Plan Association (RPA) suggested an interesting theme. “We’ve had several major eras of planning in this country,” he explained. “When Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, he spurred a major expansion in the nation’s land mass and then had to figure out what to do with it. One hundred years later Teddy Roosevelt appointed Gifford Pinchot to create the National Park Service. We’re due for another national planning initiative, but we now have many challenges that require a sophisticated response. We can’t build an economy based on people driving several hours to and from work each day. We need to focus on how we can create a place that is both pleasant and affordable.”
Armando Carbonell of the Lincoln Institute asked the group to expand on what national policies are needed to support the large metropolitan regions in the country. Comments included:
Dowell Myers, director of the Planning School in the University of Southern California School of Planning, Policy and Development, moderated a session focused on transforming regional actions into local implementation. As part of the program, representatives of three regions commented on their strategies.
“Seattle grew a lot over the last 20 years and we grew in different ways,” said Mary McCumber of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC). “Our new growth was outside of our historic cities. We knew we needed to do something and we got lucky. We got ISTEA [Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act], a state growth management law and a new regional council at the same time.” Using these tools, PSRC created Destination 2030, which was honored as the best regional plan in the country by the American Planning Association (APA). “But we have planned enough. We are a land of process. Now we need to have the courage to act.”
Martin Tuttle of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) reported, “We used our federal transportation dollars to create land use incentives for community design and backed it up with $500 million. We asked people, ‘Is Atlanta what we want?’” Using the best data available and a sophisticated feedback planning process, SACOG brought the planning to the people and took the people’s plan back to the council.
Bob Yaro of RPA reminded the group that it takes “patience, persistence and perseverance.” He presented New York City as an urban success story, where 8 million people ride the transit system per day. “The Regional Plan Association, created in 1929, oversees a three-state region, and those states don’t like each other much. They have different DNA,” Yaro noted. Despite that history, RPA created the first strategy for a multi-centered region. Unlike the other regional councils, RPA is a private-sector organization. “The real power is in the civic community, if you can get people organized and move them in the right direction,” Yaro added.
Tom Bell, president and CEO of Cousins Properties in Atlanta, introduced a private-sector perspective on engaging in regional policy development: “I was surprised to read in Time magazine that the Atlanta region is the fastest growing settlement in human history. We are gobbling up 100 acres a day. There is no common ground. Democracy and land planning go together like oil and water. But you [planners] are the people who can make a change. Developers will do a lot of work if we can see a payoff. Visions are in short supply and the status quo is not an option.”
Addressing income distribution in the regions, Paul Ong, director of the Lewis Study Center at UCLA, reported that poverty rates among the elderly have declined at the same time that rates among children have increased. More distressing, poverty is higher and more concentrated in urban areas. “We are seeing a working underclass—not people on welfare but people who have jobs.” Rick Porth from Hartford and Howard Maier from Cleveland responded with case studies from their regions on income and social equity. In Hartford, Porth said, “the disparity is getting worse. More important, 20 percent of our future workforce is being educated in our worst schools.” Maier noted, “our economy is in transformation. The Cleveland area was a manufacturing center for steel and car production, but now we have more healthcare workers than steel or auto workers. As a region of 175 communities, we have 175 land use policies based on 175 zoning codes and maps. Each community’s plans may be rational, but together they project a future of sprawl without the ability for coordinated public services or facilities.”
In other sessions several regions that had developed assessment and benchmarking studies presented their current work, and the conference concluded with presentations by each of the councils on a best practice study, strategy or methodology that they have implemented.
The conference theme—confronting housing, transportation and regional growth—underscores the complexity of the metropolitan environment and the necessity for an integrated response to regional dynamics. Traditional regional councils are unique in their ability to link multiple regional systems to focus on specific regional questions. Housing affordability, a seemingly intractable problem overwhelming metropolitan regions, can only be understood against the backdrop of the local government fiscal policy. Transportation systems, often understood as infrastructure designed to service an existing regional settlement pattern, must be seen as a key determinant of economic development policy as well as a primary driver of land use change in regions. The metropolitan regions of this country are the economic engines of our states and the country as a whole. A new, enriched dialogue with the White House could stimulate a series of policy initiatives. As that conversation proceeds, regional councils are the key organizations to engage business and civic leaders with local elected officials around the regional table.
David Soule is senior research associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University in Boston. He teaches political science and conducts research on urban economic development, tax policy and transportation systems. He is the former executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the regional planning agency representing 101 cities and towns in the Boston area.
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The content of the Institute’s work program has evolved significantly over the past two years, and its annual activities have increased by about half since 2004. Reflecting this evolution and growth, the Institute’s programs and staffing are also changing.
The former Department of Planning and Development has been replaced by two new departments. The Department of Planning and Urban Form, headed by Armando Carbonell, addresses planning and its relation to the form of the built environment with a focus on three themes: spatial externalities and multijurisdictional governance issues; the interplay of public and private interests in the use of land; and land policy, land conservation, and the environment. The Department of Economic and Community Development, headed by Rosalind Greenstein, connects planning to development and fiscal issues with a focus on four themes: the city, land, and the university; neighborhood planning and development; fiscal dimensions of planning; and urban economics and revitalization.
The Department of Valuation and Taxation, headed by Joan Youngman, continues its focus on land taxation, property taxation, and the valuation process within an expanded program. The main activities of the Department of International Studies continue to be its programs in Latin America and in China focusing on land and tax policy issues. Other international activities include work in Eastern Europe on administration of market value based property taxation, in South Africa on property taxation and land markets, and in Taiwan on infrastructure development and planning.
This year the Institute established a new position, Manager of Public Affairs, and Anthony Flint took up this work in late July. He will be responsible for disseminating information about the Institute’s products, findings, and activities, particularly with the media and through the Internet. He will develop the Institute’s Web site as an outreach tool, writing regular columns, making the site more interactive, and strengthening its capacity as a key Internet portal for those interested in land policy.
Anthony covered transportation, planning and development, architecture, and urban design as a reporter for the Boston Globe from 1989 to 2005. For the past year, he was Smart Growth Education Director at the Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development. While a visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), he wrote the book This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) on the forces influencing urban growth in the United States. Anthony became familiar with the Institute as a Loeb Fellow at the GSD in 2000 and has since contributed to the Institute’s annual journalists program and authored an Institute working paper on density. A graduate of Middlebury College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Anthony will continue to do research and writing.
The Institute also has been adapting its training programs to take advantage of the capabilities of the Internet. Several of the Institute’s basic courses have been made available for distance education and Internet-based instruction. These typically involve videotaped presentations that can be downloaded from the Internet or a CD. Examples include the introductory courses on conservation easements, mediation of land use disputes, and planning fundamentals. This shift has freed up resources for new classroom courses, such as one based on the book The Humane Metropolis, published this fall by University of Massachusetts Press in association with the Institute.
The Latin American Program has developed several Internet-based courses offered live with real-time instructor feedback on the students’ work. These courses on urban land policy and property taxation topics are presented in Spanish and Portuguese to participants in Latin America.
Finally, the Institute will soon launch a program of evaluations of land policy programs in the United States. One of the first of these will assess the performance of smart growth policies that have been applied to different degrees in many states. This work is part of a new Institute initiative to improve our knowledge of what works and why in land policy.
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Faculty Profile of Paulo Sandroni
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As a city grows in size and building density, improvements to the land supporting the new development are usually part of the growth process. However, the combination of demand for additional construction sites and the limited amount of physical land available for development often results in land price increases.
This land scarcity is caused by three primary factors: the ability of landowners to retain serviced land from the market (attributed to a concentration of land ownership and legal and other institutional constraints); difficulties in accessing areas not yet prepared for occupation due to a lack of infrastructure; and restrictions imposed by zoning. Each of these factors has its own dynamics, but they are not necessarily present at the same time. Such is the case in Brazilian cities, particularly São Paulo, where these restrictive factors do not always operate in the same way with regard to land price.
For example, building regulations may reduce the land price of individual plots, but increase the overall price when the regulations affect all plots and thus restrict housing supply. A large stock of vacant land controlled by a few owners can cause price increases, while the lack of accessibility can result in lower prices. Land price also depends on the nature of the land regulation. As the city grows, the greater demand for buildable urban land generally results in added values if the existing infrastructure supports a more intense occupation of land and the zoning regulations (or changes thereto) also permit higher building density.
To examine these issues, we must consider first how the investment in infrastructure that provides or intensifies the means of access and use of land is financed; and second how the benefits and costs from the land improvements are distributed. Generally the cost of public services (e.g., streets, bridges, sewers, lighting, water) is paid with public funds, whereas the improvement or added value to the land created by the public investment in infrastructure, with few exceptions, is reaped by the owners of the improved property entirely free of charge.
Increases in property value also may result from simple changes in the use of land that is already accessible, for example when land previously considered rural is redefined as urban. Changes in potential densities due to new zoning regulations can create great benefits for the affected properties, although in this case as in the previous one future pressure on the infrastructure will require substantial public investment.
The Legal Framework
Owners of improved property in Brazil, as in most countries, traditionally appropriated the added value generated by public sector investment and zoning changes. The notion that owners should not be the only beneficiaries of such improvements was introduced in Brazil gradually during the 1970s, and this principle was incorporated in articles 182 and 183 of the 1988 Federal Constitution. These articles were subsequently regulated by Federal Law No. 10,257 of 2001, also known as the Urban Development Act or City Statute (Estatuto da Cidade).
Since 1988 urban development has been a matter of federal law. In practice, the federal legis-lation ratified the principle of the social function of urban land ownership and the separation of the right to own land from the right to build. Based on the 2001 act, the City of São Paulo approved its Strategic Master Plan in 2002 and Land Use Law 13,885 in 2004. These laws introduced the mechanism of Charges for Additional Building Rights (Outoga Onerosa do Direito de Construir–OODC), established minimum, basic, and maximum coefficients of land use (or floor area ratios), and limited the supply of buildable area. These tools, utilized together, enabled the municipality to improve land management efficiency, promote socially desirable outcomes, and increase revenues.
The minimum coefficient or floor area ratio (FAR) refers to the minimum use expected from a plot to comply with its social function; the basic FAR refers to the buildable area that any owner has the right to develop by virtue of ownership; and the maximum FAR is the amount of development that could be supported by the existing in-frastructure and zoning regulations. The charges associated with the OODC are imposed on the difference between the maximum FAR and the basic FAR of a plot.
The Administration of Building Rights
The OODC is the monetary compensation paid by those who receive new building rights (buildable area) from the government. This development con-cession (provided by articles 28, 29, 30, and 31 of Federal Law 10,257 of 2001 and defined in articles 209 to 216 of the 2002 Strategic Master Plan) is one of the regulatory instruments used to administer building rights in the city, except in areas designated for large-scale urban operations that use a special legal instrument to encourage public-private interventions (Biderman, Sandroni, and Smolka 2006).
The basic FAR of land use established in 2004 varies between 1 and 2, depending on the area of the city considered. The maximum FAR can be 1, 2, 2.5, or 4, also depending on the area. In some urban areas these new regulations reduced building rights by establishing a basic FAR of 1 for land that had been designated 2 or more under prior legislation. In parallel, the municipality of São Paulo used the OODC to extend the building potential or the maximum FAR up to 4 on land that previously could be developed up to only 1 or 2.
As a result, in certain areas where the FAR was reduced from 2 to 1, developers could submit projects using the former FAR 2, or even the maximum FAR 3 or 4, as long as they paid the government for the additional buildable area corresponding to the difference between the basic FAR and the FAR used in the project. This instrument favors developers, assuming they find the charges cost-effective, because it allows them to build up to FAR 4 in areas where formerly the maximum was FAR 2. Typical landowners do not always find this tool advantageous, however, since the building potential of their land may be reduced and a charge may be imposed on what they previously perceived as a right to build, free of any charges.
Landowners of small lots and low-density housing may not notice what they could be losing when the FAR is changed because they typically view their property as combining the land, building, and other improvements. It is difficult to separate the value of land from that of improvements, so an eventual land value decrease is not perceived immediately. Furthermore, the expansion of the real estate market in São Paulo coincided with the approval of this new legislation in 2004, and the overall increase in land prices may have compensated the eventual price decline associated with changes in FAR. It is also necessary to note that the expansion of government credit for house financing since 2006 contributed to an increase in demand for land and consequently the rise of land prices.
For the developers, the increase in FAR to 4 in areas where the maximum had been 1 or 2 constituted a favorable situation. They could invest more capital in land and make more profitable undertakings, thus compensating for the extra payment they made for the difference between the basic and the maximum FAR. Gradually, developers were convinced that it was better to pay this land value increment to the government than to private owners because the government converted the payments into improvements that frequently benefited the developers’ projects.
The 2002 Strategic Master Plan and Law 13,885 of 2004 also limited the supply of residential and nonresidential building potential in all city districts by establishing a total additional buildable area of 9,769 million square meters (m2): 6,919 million m2 for residential use and 2,850 million m2 for nonresidential use (table 1). This potential did not include the buildable areas inside the perimeter of São Paulo’s 13 urban operations. The additional areas were distributed among the 91 out of 96 city districts, excluding five environmentally protected areas. This definition and demarcation of the potential building stock introduced a new element to the real estate market.
Once the maximum building area was known, developers anticipated land scarcity in those districts where the supply was low and the real estate dynamic high, thus unleashing a trend in higher land prices. The lack of buildable area, in turn, lead to pressures from real estate developers for the government to increase the supply—that is, to change the building area limits in some districts during the 2007 revision of the master plan—but their efforts were not successful. By October 2010 the land supply had been exhausted, or was very close to it, for residential use in 17 districts and for nonresidential uses in 5 districts (figure 1).
Planning and Social Interest Factors
The formula to calculate the OODC charge adopted in São Paulo’s 2002 Strategic Master Plan takes into account planning and social interest factors in addition to the characteristics of the parcel and the actual economic benefit allocated to the property as a result of the OODC.
The planning factor is an instrument that seeks to encourage or discourage higher densities in certain areas, depending on the existing infrastructure, especially public transport and mass transit. The planning factor is also used to obtain greater financial compensation from the sale of building rights for businesses in improved areas of the city, as the coefficient varies according to whether the land use is residential or nonresidential.
The social interest factor establishes exemptions or reductions in the financial charge, depending on the type of activity to be developed on the parcel. The coefficient ranges from zero to one and is applicable to a variety of activities. For example, the coefficient for affordable or social housing is zero, which means that developers of this type of housing do not pay compensation for additional building rights. Similarly, nonprofit hospitals, schools, health and infant care clinics, cultural facilities, sports and leisure institutions, and houses of worship have a coefficient of zero.
These factors act as incentives for desirable social outcomes, since the smaller the planning and social interest factor coefficients applicable to a given area, the smaller the charge to be paid, and the greater the incentive for projects to be developed in the area.
Revenue Impact and Allocation of Funds
Total revenues from OODC payments reached R$650 million (US$325 million) in approximately five years, in spite of the global financial crisis that constricted credit by end of the period (table 2). These funds are deposited into the Urban Development Fund (FUNDURB), which was created to implement plans and projects in urban and environmental areas, or other interventions contemplated in the 2002 master plan.
As of September 2008, the number of projects approved to be financed by FUNDURB included 15 linear parks (R$42.5 million), sidewalk and street improvements (R$21.2 million), drainage and sanitation (R$108 million), community facilities (R$ 21.1 million), regularization of informal settlements (R$50 million), and restoration of culture heritage buildings (R$37 million).
Concluding Remarks
After the City of São Paulo approved the 2002 Strategic Master Plan, the principle of development concessions and buildable land was applied throughout its territory. When a real estate project exceeds the basic FAR and the developer wants to build up to a maximum of 4, payment of financial charges to the government is required. Since the OODC was introduced, revenues have increased annually. One should keep in mind that these revenues are net of the more than US$1 billion generated from 2 of the city’s 13 Urban Operations (Faria Lima and Agua Espraiada) where major zoning and density changes are occurring (Biderman, Sandroni, and Smolka 2006). In those areas the new building rights are priced through the auction of CEPACs, and the revenues must be invested in the area corresponding to the urban operation instead of going to the FUNDURB fund to benefit the city as a whole (Sandroni 2010).
The charge for building rights in São Paulo does not seem to have affected the profitability of developers. On the contrary, increasing the maximum FAR to 4 in some areas of the city contributed to enhancing the developers’ rates of return. However, setting a maximum reserve for building rights seems to have caused an upward trend in land prices, especially in districts where the supply of buildable area is low. In some districts developers proceeded to deplete the supply of residential building rights quickly. This type of response will probably intensify in the future, thus putting pressure on the city government to raise the maximum stock of buildable area and/or the maximum FAR. If this happens, there is a risk that the motivation to increase municipal revenue may outweigh urban planning criteria and the limitations of infrastructure, especially public transportation and mass transit.
Moreover, the flow of financial compensation will not be continuous. Unlike property tax revenues that recur annually, revenues from the sale of building rights will fade in time as the additional building potential is exhausted. In some sectors of the city the supply of buildable area has already been depleted, and the city has achieved its defined goal for building density. However, future changes in the master plan may provide greater building potential for these areas, depending on technical recommendations and the political conditions for the change to take place.
In sum, the application of the principle of the social function of property, embedded in the 2002 Strategic Master Plan for São Paulo, enabled the enactment of municipal legislation that clearly separates the right of ownership from the right to build. As a result, the traditional notion of all-encompassing property rights is no longer sustained, and land ownership cannot override the public interest or take precedence over the social function of property. Consequently, existing building rights can be reduced without landowners being entitled to monetary compensation simply because their hopes have been dashed.
About the Author
Paulo Henrique Sandroni is an economist who served as director of urban planning and public transportation for the City of São Paulo from 1988 to 1993, and for a short period he served the federal government as vice-minister of administration. He has published articles and books on economics, including a dictionary considered a primary reference on economics in Brazil. Sandroni is also a professor at the Economics and Business School at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, a private consultant on urban development and transportation issues, and a lecturer in programs sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
References
Biderman, Ciro, Paulo Sandroni, and Martim O. Smolka. 2006. Large-scale urban interventions: The case of Faria Lima in São Paulo. Land Lines 18(2): 8–13.
Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo, Secretaria de Financas. www.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/cidade/secretarias/financas
Sandroni, Paulo. 2010. A new financial instrument of value capture in São Paulo: Certificates of additional construction potential. In Municipal revenues and land policies, Gregory K. Ingram and Yu-Hung Hong, eds., 218–236. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
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Latin American cities have been leaders in the implementation of bus rapid transit (BRT) systems—a transportation mode often characterized by infrastructure improvements that prioritize transit over other vehicles, provide off-vehicle fare payment, and allow quick vehicle access. More than 45 cities in Latin America have invested in BRT, accounting for 63.6 percent of BRT ridership worldwide.
In Curitiba, Brazil, BRT has been used as a tool to spur development that supports and reinforces the overall transit system. The city introduced exclusive bus lanes in 1972 and encouraged mixed-use, high-density development along the five main corridors that converge in the downtown center and have guided urban growth for decades. Curitiba’s new green line is predicated on similar principles: to encourage urban development that enhances and facilitates transit use. The case of Curitiba suggests that the success of BRT can increase with the presence of concentrated land development along the transit corridor. Other studies have examined whether BRT can actually stimulate land development.
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is the term used to describe development that is compact and has a mixture of land uses, often including residential, commercial, and office uses, as well as high-quality pedestrian environments that effectively connect with transit. Development is considered transit-friendly or transit-supportive because it can concentrate demand along corridors, balance passenger flows, and create opportunities for multimodal travel. U.S. evidence suggests that residents of TODs do use public transportation more than other commuters. Although the majority of TODs are built around rail systems, TOD can be a strategy to complement and build on the strengths of BRT as well.
TOD Typologies
Researchers and practitioners have developed a variety of TOD typologies, but none have focused specifically on BRT. The type of development that could happen around BRT stops is critical for planning development around them, for understanding how TOD fits within a regional growth strategy, for raising awareness and engaging the public, and, ultimately, for increasing the success of the system.
The literature on TOD suggests important potential differences in the characteristics and types of such development. One approach relies on the expertise and experience of planners, architects, and urban designers. Peter Calthorpe (1993) used urbanity to identify urban and neighborhood TODs with such distinguishing features as the quality of transit service, land uses, development intensity, and urban design. The geography of these TODs could vary from greenfield development to infill and redevelopment. A similar typology developed for the state of Florida in 2011 focused on center size (regional, community, neighborhood), but also included another dimension that was specific to the transit mode (Renaissance Planning Group 2011).
Dittmar and Poticha (2004) blended geography and urbanity in their TOD typology that includes urban downtown, urban neighborhood, suburban town center, suburban neighborhood, neighborhood transit zone, and commuter town. The same approach has taken hold in most recent applications of TOD typologies. For example, Sacramento, California, defined TOD as urban core/downtown, urban center, employment center, residential center, commuter center, and enhanced bus corridor (Steer Davies Gleave 2009). Reconnecting America developed a typology for the San Francisco Bay Area that included regional center, city center, suburban center, transit town center, urban neighborhood, transit neighborhood, and mixed use corridor (Metropolitan Planning Commission 2007). In Denver, Colorado, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD 2008) developed a guide for station area planning that included the addition of a special use/employment district type.
An alternative approach to developing typologies a priori is to use data-grouping techniques to examine existing evidence. For example, a typology of development around 25 rail stations that had integrated development in Hong Kong revealed five types: high-rise office, high-rise residential, large-scale residential, large mixed use, and mid-rise residential (Cervero and Murakami 2009). Another study used cluster analysis to develop a spatial-functional definition of station area types around Phoenix’s light rail lines (Atkinson-Palombo and Kuby 2011). Employment centers, middle-income mixed-use areas, park and ride nodes, high population/rental areas, and areas of urban poverty were the types identified.
A final set of emerging typologies led by CTOD embodies the built environment with an implementation or performance dimension. These typologies often become a two-dimensional matrix, with built environment types in one axis and measures of implementation readiness in the other. Such typologies developed for Portland, Oregon, and Baltimore, Maryland, are used to guide investments and promote policy change and are particularly helpful in raising awareness about the travel benefits of TOD (Deng and Nelson 2012).
Study Cities and Data Collection
To understand the status of BRT-oriented development in Latin America we examined the built environment around BRT stops in seven cities (table 1). We looked for large cities that had BRTs in operation for five years or more and identified the following places: Bogotá (Colombia); Curitiba (Brazil); Goiânia (Brazil); Guatemala City (Guatemala); Guayaquil (Ecuador); Quito (Ecuador); and the São Paulo (Brazil) metro region (ABD Corridor). Together, these cities represent 16 percent of the world’s BRT ridership and 31 percent of Latin America’s BRT ridership. We considered two types of stops: regular stops, which refer to common BRT stops; and terminals, which refer to stops at the end of the line or where significant transfers occur from one BRT line to another. With the help of local planners we identified particular stops that were representative of the entire system, regardless of the development orientation towards BRT. In the end, we identified 51 regular stops and 31 terminals for further examination.
The absence of common data at a high spatial resolution required that we collect data in the field with an environmental audit tool designed for use at the road segment and block levels. A segment was defined as the street between two intersections. The data collection form contained the following fields about the environment:
For regular stops, we examined road segments within 250 meters (m) of the stop. For terminals, we examined the area within 500m. In some instances (seven cases in Guatemala City and one in Goiânia) we examined two stops (instead of one) because of one-way streets that influenced the location of stops along parallel streets. In these cases the area analyzed was slightly larger than 250m. In addition to the audit data, we used some secondary data obtained from local authorities, such as population within each stop area.
Overall, we audited 10,632 segments and 2,963 blocks around 82 BRT stops and terminals. Because the surface area audited among stops was similar, comparisons of segments and blocks per stop provide information about compactness and connectivity in those areas of each city. One stop in Guayaquil had the most segments (102.1), while stops in São Paulo (ABD) had the fewest (43.1). A similar pattern was detected when examining segments per block.
All data were aggregated at the stop level. Data collected at the segment level were aggregated to develop measures of the percentage of segments around a stop with or without a given feature. Data collected at the block level were aggregated to develop measures of the raw number or the density of features around a stop. In the end, we calculated 38 variables characterizing the built environment around each stop.
BRT Stop Typologies
With such a large number of variables (38) and a relatively low number of observations (82), we used exploratory factor analysis to develop a subset of variables and to estimate their factor scores. Factor analysis relies on the correlation of the data to identify groups of variables that are most alike. The 38 variables were reduced into nine factors for further study:
Several observations emerged from examining the factors and their descriptive statistics. First, development intensity around stops seems to be relatively low. For example, only 8 percent of segments have developments of high density, but 31 percent of segments contain low-density development. Second, in the cities studied redevelopment as a strategy to encourage BRT-oriented development seems critical. Only 8 percent of segments had low levels of consolidation and 11 percent of them had vacant lots. By contrast, almost half of the segments had development that was highly consolidated. This result suggests limited opportunities for BRT-oriented development in undeveloped greenfield sites. Third, in terms of parking, it is remarkable that 26 percent of segments had on-street parking and 30 percent had commercial and retail activity with off-street parking. This highlights the challenge of managing parking supply (and demand) and may indicate that the environment around BRT stops often is not as friendly to pedestrians and BRT users as it should.
The performance of each stop on the nine factors was combined with population density and three additional variables that did not correlate with any other variables in an agglomerative cluster analysis to determine which stops could be grouped. The resulting cluster analysis was the basis for the typology, which identified 10 development types around BRT stops (table 2).
When examining the typology by city we find that two stop types capture city-specific factors: Quito’s city center and several stops unique to Guatemala City, which has the newest system among those studied. Its newness and the fact that it serves fairly consolidated parts of the city might explain why the stops cluster together. The other eight stop types represent a broad cross-section of stops across several cities.
Five attributes appear to discriminate among stops: (1) multifamily developments with and without BRT orientation; (2) single-family attached housing, in some cases built informally, and with access to some commercial activity, often away from activity nodes; (3) high population density, supportive pedestrian infrastructure, and access to parks and green spaces, often away from activity nodes; (4) institutional stops with green spaces, not necessarily open to the public; and (5) stops that are saddled with physical barriers set by the convergence of multiple high-volume roads.
The types identified embody a wide range of possible built environments around BRT. The BRT-oriented Satellite Center type, illustrated by Bogotá, contains significant commercial activities, public facilities, parks, and pedestrian amenities while mixing in multifamily residential and single-family attached housing (figure 1). Together, these characteristics come close to the ideal of an urban TOD. Similarly, the type represented by the downtown, city center Quito stop also has many attributes of urban TOD. Whether the presence of these types translates into higher transit ridership remains an empirical question to be tested.
Community Center and Neighborhood Center stops seem to align well with Calthorpe’s (1993) definition of community and neighborhood TODs. Among the cases analyzed, the former type exhibits some single-family attached housing and mixed uses that include institutional uses often aimed to serve proximate areas of the city. Neighborhood centers have a higher intensity of residential development, mostly focused around single-family attached housing. Our Corridor type stops seem consistent with the concept developed for enhanced bus services in Sacramento and San Francisco, although our data can clearly distinguish between corridors that are dominated by institutional uses and others that simply have a broad mix of uses.
Our typology also identified challenges and opportunities to improve the BRT orientation of development. Only the Downtown City Center and the BRT-oriented Satellite Center types provided adequate integration between the pedestrian environment and transit. The Urban Center type, such as in Curitiba, is ripe for improved integration with the BRT because it has the densities and mix of uses to support it (figure 2). The Nexus stop type, as shown in Goiânia, embodies a frequent challenge for local planners (figure 3). Such stops and terminals should be located to facilitate intermodal transfers, but this often sacrifices access by local users and the transit orientation of the stop.
Compared to other typologies, we did not find strong evidence for employment and commuter-based stops. This may be due to the relatively muted role played by mixed land uses among stops, since land uses played a significant role in other typologies. One explanation could be the typically high degree of mixed uses already present in Latin American cities, which contributes to a low degree of variation across stop areas.
In terms of housing policy, the Neighborhood Center and Green Area types contain an interesting combination of distance to centers of activity and low-income housing. Because the stops are far from activity nodes, they are more likely to contain green spaces, affordable housing, and sometimes informal housing. Latin American cities tend to have a fairly strong land price gradient, with areas with privileged access to activity nodes having higher prices than peripheral areas. These two types raise questions over the possible consequences of BRT on exacerbating the segregation of housing and the financial burden of mobility on low-income residents.
Analysis of Stop Types and Planning Visions
Our examination of 82 BRT stops in seven Latin American cities revealed a variety of development patterns. Some types have attributes that are consistent with the principles of TOD. Others are burdened by land uses, road infrastructure, and development characteristics that do not support BRT. Still other types appear to be works in progress, with significant vacant land and development that has not been fully consolidated. Finally, some stops seem to capture urban conditions that arise in many Latin American cities: informal housing distant from activity nodes; large commercial developments, frequently of the big-box type, providing private spaces for public use and commerce; and a relative absence of green spaces open to the public. This information is helpful in facilitating planning for BRT-oriented development given the rapid growth of BRT over the last two decades. Some 146 cities worldwide now have some form of a bus-based priority transit system.
Understanding the type of development that could happen around BRT stops is critical for planning station areas and for identifying how TOD fits within a regional growth strategy. Robert Cervero (1998) argues that a successful urban development vision must precede and guide transportation investments, and that planning is necessary if subcenters around transit stops are to take place. He buttresses his argument with the impressive evidence of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Singapore, suggesting that efforts to develop regional and station-area visions are critical for the future success of TOD. In fact, the burgeoning TOD typologies in the United States are predicated in part on their ability to support long-term TOD planning. For example, the Denver typology was critical to create a land use vision for its existing and forthcoming light rail station areas.
Visions of what potential future development could take place and where it would occur are central to planning, and are frequently embodied in potential future scenarios that decision makers, the public, and planners must consider. Visionary planning is often a precondition for effective TOD station area planning. The CTOD calls for planning for the plan, involving the public, marketing the project, and creating a regional TOD strategy, all of which necessitate a vision of what development can occur. Visions are particularly powerful to engage the public because they materialize potential outcomes of the planning process and enable a better understanding of the impact of their decisions about density, the mix of uses, and access to station areas.
The next step in our research is to determine the causes of the different development patterns we have identified. In some cases, the environment has changed dramatically with BRT investments, whereas in other cases there has been little change. At play are market and regulatory forces that determine the outcome of development and revitalization. Changing land use regulations, relaxing density caps, or reducing parking requirements are ways to further leverage the development potential of parcels close to BRT or other mass transit stops. This coordinated strategy between land use and transportation is the cornerstone of TOD.
About the Authors
Daniel A. Rodríguez is professor of city and regional planning, adjunct associate professor of epidemiology, and director of the Carolina Transportation Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the reciprocal relationship between the built environment, including bus rapid transit, and the behavior of travelers.
Erik Vergel tovar is a Fulbright scholar and doctoral student in city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Trained as an architect, he received a master’s degree in urban management and development with distinction at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He researches the relationships of urban transportation (especially bus rapid transit) with affordable housing and land policies.
References
Atkinson-Palombo, C., and M. J. Kuby. 2011. The geography of advance transit-oriented development in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, 2000–2007. Journal of Transport Geography 19(2): 189–199.
Calthorpe, P. 1993. The new American metropolis: Ecology, community, and the American dream. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Cervero, R., 1998. The transit metropolis: A global inquiry. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Cervero, R., and J. Murakami. 2009. Rail and property development in Hong Kong: Experiences and extensions. Urban Studies 46(10): 2019–2043.
CTOD. 2008. Station area planning: How to make great transit-oriented places. Washington, DC: Reconnecting America.
Deng, T., and J. D. Nelson. 2013. Bus rapid transit implementation in Beijing: An evaluation of performance and impacts. Research in Transportation Economics 39(1): 108–113.
Dittmar, H., and S. Poticha. 2004. Defining transit-oriented development: The new regional building block. In The new transit town: Best practices in transit-oriented development, eds. H. Dittmar and G. Ohland, xiii and 253. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Metropolitan Planning Commission. 2007. Station area planning manual. Oakland, CA. http://ctod.org/pdfs/2007MTCStationAreaPlanningManual.pdf
Renaissance Planning Group. 2011. A framework for transit oriented development in Florida. Orlando, FL. http://www.fltod.com/renaissance/docs/Products/FrameworkTOD_0715.pdf
Steer Davies Gleave. 2009. Sacramento regional transit: A transit action plan. Sacramento, CA: Sacramento Regional Transit.
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El exceso de derechos de desarrollo y las subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria actualmente reducen la calidad de vida, sesgan los patrones de desarrollo y los mercados inmobiliarios, dañan los ecosistemas y reducen la salud fiscal en muchas comunidades de la región intermontañosa del oeste de los Estados Unidos. Con posterioridad a la caída inmobiliaria de 2007, que golpeó fuertemente en muchos lugares de la región, los caminos erosionados presentes en las subdivisiones atraviesan actualmente las tierras de cultivo y muchos paisajes rurales y suburbanos continúan viéndose salpicados por solitarias viviendas “modelo”. Algunas de estas subdivisiones están desocupadas, pero otras se encuentran parcialmente ocupadas y requieren la prestación de servicios públicos a vecindarios lejanos que generan muy pocos ingresos fiscales. En aquellas jurisdicciones en donde podían venderse lotes antes de que se completara la infraestructura, muchas personas terminaron siendo propietarias de una parcela en la que se suponía que existiría un desarrollo de alto nivel y actualmente sólo existe poco más que un plano catastral.
Estos desarrollos interrumpidos, conocidos coloquialmente como subdivisiones “zombies”, son los muertos vivientes del mercado inmobiliario. Acorralados por problemas financieros o legales, los proyectos que una vez fueran muy prometedores actualmente están afectando a sus entornos con riesgos para la salud y seguridad de los habitantes, deterioro, disminución del valor de las propiedades, amenazas a las finanzas municipales, recursos naturales sobreexplotados, patrones de desarrollo fragmentados y otras distorsiones en los mercados inmobiliarios municipales.
Este artículo presenta un panorama general del contexto económico que promovió tal exceso de derechos en la región oeste, y de las medidas de planificación y control del desarrollo a nivel municipal que influyen en la forma en que dichas fuerzas del mercado actúan en una comunidad determinada. Además se describe de qué manera tres comunidades de la región intermontañosa del oeste rediseñaron las subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria que existían en sus jurisdicciones, y la forma en que dichas medidas están facilitando la recuperación, generando entornos de crecimiento más sustentables, mejorando el valor de las propiedades, y conservando el suelo y el hábitat de vida silvestre.
El trasfondo económico que fomentó el desarrollo excesivo en la región oeste
En la región intermontañosa del oeste, donde abundan los terrenos y el crecimiento rápido es algo común, no es raro que los gobiernos municipales otorguen derechos de desarrollo con una gran anticipación a la demanda de viviendas por parte del mercado. Los ciclos de auge y caída tampoco son una rareza en esta región. Sin embargo, la magnitud de la Gran Recesión amplificó la frecuencia del exceso de derechos y exacerbó el daño que provocaban en las comunidades adyacentes. Sólo en la región intermontañosa del oeste, existen millones de lotes vacantes con derechos de desarrollo. A lo largo de muchos condados en esta región, el índice de parcelas desocupadas en las subdivisiones representa aproximadamente del 15 por ciento a dos tercios de la totalidad de los lotes (ver tablas 1 y 2).
A medida que la economía se va recuperando, ¿corregirá el mercado este exceso de derechos de desarrollo, incentivando así a los promotores inmobiliarios a construir en subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria o a rediseñar aquellas que no reflejan la demanda del mercado? En algunos lugares, sí; en otros, no es muy probable. Las subdivisiones están diseñadas para ser divisiones semipermanentes del suelo. Aunque muchas áreas en la región intermontañosa del oeste están recuperándose con vigor, muchas subdivisiones todavía permanecen sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria, con derechos de desarrollo vencidos, con pocos o ningún residente, derechos de propiedad fragmentados, mejoras en la infraestructura realizadas en forma parcial o deterioradas, y mecanismos débiles o inexistentes para mantener los nuevos servicios. Si no se hace algo al respecto, estos desarrollos interrumpidos continuarán debilitando la salud fiscal y la calidad de vida de las áreas afectadas.
La complejidad de revisar los derechos de desarrollo
Las jurisdicciones municipales forjan el futuro de sus comunidades mediante el otorgamiento de derechos sobre el suelo, la aprobación de subdivisiones y la concesión de subsecuentes permisos de desarrollo. Estas medidas dan como resultado compromisos del uso del suelo que resultan difíciles de cambiar en el futuro, establecen estándares de desarrollo y, por lo general, comprometen a la comunidad a soportar importantes costos a largo plazo en los servicios.
La figura 1 demuestra que resulta mucho más fácil abordar el tema del exceso de derechos cuando se trata simplemente de subdivisiones catastrales sobre papel, con un solo propietario, sin mejoras, sin lotes vendidos y sin viviendas construidas. A medida que el estado de la subdivisión va avanzando desde un plano catastral a un desarrollo parcialmente construido, al tiempo que se involucran en el proyecto varios propietarios, o el encargado de la subdivisión ya ha comenzado a instalar mejoras, o varios propietarios han construido viviendas, los problemas se van haciendo cada vez más complejos y las opciones para resolverlos son cada vez más reducidas.
La revisión o revocación de un plano catastral requiere la aceptación de sólo un propietario que no haya realizado ninguna inversión importante que pudiera limitar la posibilidad de modificar los planes de diseño, permitiendo así las resoluciones más simples (aunque la situación se complica más si una entidad crediticia también debe aprobar los cambios). La venta de un simple lote a un propietario en particular genera más dificultades a la hora de resolver cualquier problema de derechos que tenga la subdivisión, debido a tres cuestiones legales importantes: (1) la necesidad de proteger los derechos de propiedad de los propietarios de lotes; (2) la necesidad de preservar el acceso a los lotes vendidos; y (3) la presión para que se trate de igual manera tanto a los propietarios actuales como a los posibles propietarios en el futuro. Algunos de estos problemas pueden dar lugar a demandas legales, lo que, a su vez, puede generar un posible pasivo para la ciudad o el condado. La revisión o revocación de un plano catastral con lotes vendidos requiere que muchos propietarios se pongan de acuerdo, con la consecuente posibilidad de que cada uno de ellos decida iniciar una demanda con base en uno o varios de los mencionados fundamentos legales.
Una vez que el promotor realiza inversiones significativas en infraestructura y otras mejoras, las complicaciones se multiplican. Aunque la compra de terrenos no crea en sí misma un “derecho adquirido” para completar el desarrollo, una vez que el propietario invierte en mejoras para las futuras viviendas, resulta difícil detener la construcción de dichas viviendas sin tener que reembolsar al promotor los costos de dicha infraestructura.
Las viviendas terminadas (en particular, si varias de ellas ya están ocupadas) suman una dificultad más a la complejidad de resolver las subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria. Los caminos de acceso deben conservarse y mantenerse, aun cuando las viviendas estén muy lejos unas de otras, formando patrones ineficientes. Si el promotor se comprometió a construir un campo de golf, un parque u otras atracciones para la comunidad, cada uno de los propietarios de los lotes podría reclamar el derecho a utilizar dichas atracciones, ya sea que se hayan construido o no, e independientemente de que las asociaciones para conservar dichas atracciones existan o posean la suficiente cantidad de miembros como para llevar a cabo dicha conservación. Aun cuando el promotor sea claramente responsable de construir las atracciones, el gobierno municipal podría llegar a ser responsable de las mismas si no le permite al desarrollador construir las atracciones por haber declarado desocupadas ciertas partes del plano catastral en donde se deberían haber construido dichas atracciones.
Las subdivisiones de mayor extensión que se van dividiendo en diferentes fases a lo largo de las distintas etapas de la construcción son las que generan los problemas más intrincados y de mayor alcance. Las primeras fases de la construcción pueden, en su mayoría, consistir en la venta de lotes con la mayor parte de la estructura en pie, pero las fases posteriores tal vez consistan en meros planos catastrales, sin construcciones, sin lotes vendidos y sin mejoras realizadas. De esta manera, una sola subdivisión sujeta a ejecución hipotecaria puede generar distintos tipos de problemas legales en cuanto a los derechos y, en consecuencia, puede presentar distintos niveles de riesgo y de posible responsabilidad, en diferentes zonas del desarrollo.
Cómo tres comunidades rediseñaron con éxito el exceso de derechos
Los gobiernos municipales que desean solucionar los posibles impactos negativos derivados del exceso de derechos de desarrollo y de las subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria, tienen a su disposición diferentes medidas sobre el uso y la zonificación del suelo. Como resultado de nuestra investigación, hemos identificado 48 herramientas y 12 buenas prácticas, que hemos extraído de casos de estudio, lecciones impartidas por diferentes expertos en varios talleres, análisis de datos y una encuesta realizada a planificadores, promotores y propietarios en la región intermontañosa del oeste (para obtener el listado de las estrategias de prevención y tratamiento, consultar el informe completo sobre enfoque en políticas de suelo titulado Arrested Developments: Combating Zombie Subdivisions and Other Excess Entitlements). En general, estas estrategias pueden clasificarse en cuatro categorías: incentivos económicos, compra de derechos sobre el suelo o derechos de desarrollo, programas de gestión del crecimiento, y normativas sobre el desarrollo:
1. Los incentivos económicos, tales como inversiones específicas en infraestructura, exención de tarifas y racionalización de las normas, con el fin de evitar las normas regulatorias controvertidas.
2. La compra de derechos sobre el suelo o derechos de desarrollo es la forma más directa de eliminar los derechos de desarrollo indeseados, pero puede resultar muy costosa para algunas comunidades.
3. La gestión del crecimiento implica hacer uso de los límites de las áreas de servicios urbanos o adaptar los requisitos adecuados de servicios públicos con el fin de limitar nuevos derechos de desarrollo.
4. Las normativas de desarrollo, que implican llevar a cabo una rezonificación, realizar cambios en las ordenanzas sobre subdivisiones y garantías de desarrollo, iniciar procesos de desocupación de planos catastrales, y revisar los modelos de acuerdo de desarrollo.
Las tres comunidades siguientes que conforman nuestros casos de estudio utilizaron principalmente normas sobre el desarrollo. El condado de Mesa, en Colorado, y el condado de Teton, en Idaho, revisaron sus acuerdos sobre el desarrollo a fin de rediseñar las subdivisiones municipales sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria. Las tres jurisdicciones, incluyendo a la ciudad de Maricopa, en Arizona, también facilitaron las medidas de realización de nuevos planos catastrales en forma voluntaria.
De qué manera el condado de Mesa, Colorado, revisó su procedimiento para aprobación de desarrollos y abandonó los planos catastrales
Durante el período de auge y caída del petróleo en la década de 1980, el condado de Mesa, Colorado, fue una de las regiones que sufrió los peores efectos. Cuando ExxonMobil abandonó sus operaciones en el área, la población de Grand Junction (la sede del condado) disminuyó bruscamente en unos 15.000 habitantes de la noche a la mañana. Todos los desarrollos se detuvieron. Después de la caída, quedaron abandonadas más de 400 subdivisiones que comprendían cerca de 4.000 lotes en todo el condado. Aproximadamente el 20 por ciento de las subdivisiones en el condado de Mesa quedaron con acuerdos sobre mejoras en el desarrollo sin cumplir.
Cuando la clasificación crediticia de bonos del condado cayó en el año 1988, se tomaron varias medidas a fin de eliminar el exceso de derechos. El condado negoció con bancos locales y con la comunidad dedicada a los desarrollos a fin de establecer formas y procedimientos para celebrar acuerdos sobre mejoras al desarrollo. También se estableció una nueva garantía financiera, denominada “Acuerdo de desembolso para subdivisiones”, entre las entidades crediticias de la construcción y el condado. Este acuerdo permite al condado asociarse directamente con las instituciones financieras para garantizar: (1) un presupuesto para la construcción firmado de mutuo acuerdo; (2) un plazo establecido para la construcción de las mejoras; (3) un procedimiento elaborado de mutuo acuerdo, que implica inspecciones en el lugar durante la construcción, para el otorgamiento de fondos de préstamo a los promotores; y (4) el compromiso del condado de aceptar las mejoras del promotor (una vez reunidas ciertas condiciones) y de liberar al promotor de la garantía financiera.
Al condado de Mesa le llevó 15 años resolver completamente el exceso de derechos derivados de la caída de la década de 1980, pero la tarea dio sus frutos: durante la Gran Recesión, el condado tuvo el menor índice de parcelas desocupadas en las subdivisiones en relación con la totalidad de lotes subdivididos, comparado con cerca de 50 condados examinados en la región intermontañosa del oeste. Ningún promotor se echó atrás en los acuerdos de desarrollo cuando sólo se realizaron mejoras parciales. Aunque algunas subdivisiones permanecen desocupadas, todas las mejoras se han completado hasta el punto de que las parcelas estarán listas para las obras de construcción una vez que sean vendidas.
A modo de ejemplo, River Canyon (figura 2) se planificó como una subdivisión de 38 lotes sobre una superficie de 77 hectáreas. Cuando explotó la burbuja inmobiliaria en el año 2008, todo el sitio había sido ligeramente nivelado con carreteras construidas a través de las montañas, aunque no se habían completado otras mejoras ni se había vendido ninguna parcela. Al caer en cuenta de que los lotes no serían viables a corto plazo, el promotor trabajó junto con el condado para realizar nuevos planos catastrales de la subdivisión con el fin de lograr un solo lote matriz hasta que el propietario estuviera listo para solicitar una nueva revisión de la subdivisión.
Esta solución permitió que todos salieran beneficiados: el condado escapa de un contrato con el desarrollador en mora y evita la venta de lotes a muchos propietarios con los que le resultaría muy difícil coordinar la construcción de mejoras en las subdivisiones. El desarrollador, por su parte, evita el costo de instalar servicios y pagar impuestos en propiedades desocupadas zonificadas para desarrollos residenciales.
Ahora, las entidades crediticias en el condado de Mesa por lo general alientan la consolidación de lotes registrados en el catastro, ya que muchos bancos no otorgan créditos ni prorrogan el plazo de los préstamos para construcción sin un porcentaje cierto de preventas que validen la propiedad como una inversión sólida. Por lo general, el propietario también cumple, a fin de evitar el pago de impuestos sobre propiedades residenciales desocupadas, que representan la segunda tasa de impuesto más alta en Colorado. Si la demanda de mercado repunta, el propietario puede entonces presentar los mismos planos de subdivisión para que los revise el condado, para cumplir con las normas vigentes. Si los planos todavía cumplen con las normas, el promotor puede entonces iniciar allí el proceso de subdivisión. El condado de Mesa consolidó parcelas de esta forma unas siete veces en total desde 2008 hasta 2012 para eliminar lotes en los que no se preveía ninguna construcción residencial en un futuro cercano.
De qué manera la ciudad de Maricopa, Arizona, se asoció con el sector privado para convertir parcelas sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria en lotes con fines no residenciales
Maricopa fue declarada municipio en 2003, en los primeros años del auge inmobiliario de Arizona. Esta ciudad es una más de las típicas entre muchas comunidades exurbanas nuevas dentro de las regiones metropolitanas en crecimiento. Al enfrentar una afluencia de nuevos residentes (que debían viajar a sus empleos hasta que pudieran comprar una vivienda cerca de su trabajo), la comunidad destinó rápidamente la mayor parte del suelo disponible a derechos de subdivisión residencial. En el punto álgido del auge inmobiliario, esta pequeña ciudad, ubicada a 60 km del centro de Phoenix y a 32 km del límite urbanizado del área metropolitana de Phoenix, emitía unos 600 permisos de construcción residencial por mes.
El condado de Pinal había aprobado muchas de las subdivisiones residenciales de Maricopa antes de que la ciudad se convirtiera en un municipio, de acuerdo con el código de zonificación de 1967 del condado. De hecho, cumpliendo con la práctica estándar relativa a las nuevas ciudades convertidas en municipios, la ciudad, al principio, adoptó la ordenanza de zonificación del condado de Pinal. Durante un tiempo, la comisión de planificación y zonificación del condado siguió funcionando como el organismo de supervisión de planificación de la ciudad. Sin embargo, este antiguo código de condado rural no tenía en cuenta ni posibilitaba la creación de incentivos para los desarrollos de uso mixto, áreas con un carácter de centro de ciudad, un equilibrio entre empleos y viviendas, usos institucionales o servicios sociales. Esta falta de diversidad dio como resultado una escasez de áreas destinadas a servicios y comercios minoristas, así como también una falta de áreas destinadas a organizaciones sin fines de lucro, tales como iglesias, escuelas privadas, guarderías de niños, centros terapéuticos y servicios de salud. A medida que los nuevos residentes buscaban servicios públicos y empleos locales, esta carencia de terrenos para empleos y servicios públicos se volvió cada vez más problemática.
Cuando la Gran Recesión golpeó al país y ocurrió la caída del mercado inmobiliario, la oferta de lotes residenciales superó ampliamente la demanda, por lo que muchos de estos lotes quedaron sujetos a ejecución hipotecaria. Maricopa enfrentó este desafío y aprovechó la oportunidad para reexaminar sus patrones de crecimiento y, así, abordar el problema de la gran cantidad de subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria que plagaban la comunidad.
La ciudad decidió asociarse con el sector privado (promotores, bancos, agencias afianzadoras y otras agencias gubernamentales) a fin de solucionar el problema de las subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria y la falta de uso del suelo a los fines institucionales y públicos. La primera prueba a este nuevo enfoque se dio cuando una congregación católica estaba buscando un sitio donde construir su iglesia en una zona urbana que ya tuviera la infraestructura para los servicios de agua potable, alcantarillado, etc. La ciudad de Maricopa actuó como facilitadora para poner en contacto a la iglesia con los promotores de Glennwilde, un desarrollo sujeto a ejecución hipotecaria parcialmente construido. La iglesia escogió un lugar que se encontraba en la última fase de la subdivisión y que, en ese momento, era todavía un mero plano catastral. La ciudad desocupó el plano catastral para dicho sitio y luego lo devolvió a una gran parcela que el desarrollador de Glennwilde, a su vez, vendió a la iglesia.
La construcción aún no ha comenzado, pero el proyecto ha servido como modelo para otros desarrollos interrumpidos. Las medidas tomadas en colaboración entre la ciudad, los propietarios de subdivisiones actualmente sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria y otras partes interesadas también ha inspirado la aprobación de propuestas para un centro de la Iglesia de los Santos de los Últimos Días, un centro cívico, un parque regional y una instalación multigeneracional en toda la ciudad.
De qué manera el condado de Teton, Idaho, demandó el rediseño de planos catastrales, la desocupación de lotes o la realización de nuevos catastros
El condado de Teton en Idaho, un condado rural no municipal con una población anual estimada de 10.170 habitantes, tiene un total de 9.031 lotes registrados, de los cuales 6.778 están vacantes. Aunque el índice de crecimiento anual del condado volviera al 6 por ciento al que había llegado entre los años 2000 y 2008, este inventario de lotes refleja una acumulación tal que podría adaptarse al crecimiento en los próximos 70 años. Este exceso extremo de derechos, a razón de tres lotes vacantes con derechos por cada lote desarrollado en el condado, es el resultado de tres malas decisiones tomadas por el consejo de administración entre 2003 y 2005.
En primer lugar, el condado adoptó un procedimiento fácil y rápido para que los propietarios solicitaran el derecho de modificar la categoría zonal de sus propiedades de lotes de 8 hectáreas a lotes de 1 hectárea. Ninguna de estas modificaciones zonales se otorgó junto con una propuesta de desarrollo concurrente: prácticamente todas las modificaciones se otorgaron con el fin de un desarrollo especulativo en el futuro. Era práctica normal del condado modificar las categorías zonales de cientos de hectáreas en una sola noche de audiencias públicas, ya que el orden del día de una de estas audiencias podía incluir hasta diez solicitudes de subdivisión.
En segundo lugar, la Guía de Desarrollo 2004–2010 del condado establecía un crecimiento dinámico enfocado a la construcción residencial a fin de impulsar el desarrollo económico. Sin embargo, las metas y objetivos eran vagos y el plan no especificaba el tipo y ubicación de los proyectos. Debido al rechazo de la comunidad, el documento finalmente se ignoró durante el proceso de aprobaciones y fomentó un desarrollo explosivo y sin patrones, lo que dio como resultado que, durante seis años, se tomaran decisiones sobre el uso del suelo sin ninguna estrategia coherente.
En tercer lugar, el consejo de administración del condado adoptó, en el año 2005, una ordenanza sobre Desarrollo Planificado de Unidades (PUD, por sus siglas en inglés) que establecía bonificaciones por densidad. Según las disposiciones sobre desarrollos en conjunto del PUD, los desarrolladores podían exceder los derechos zonales subyacentes hasta un 1.900 por ciento. Las típicas bonificaciones por densidad para el buen diseño establecidas en el PUD oscilan entre el 10 por ciento y el 20 por ciento. Ahora, aquellas áreas con un sistema central de agua potable clasificadas en una zonificación de 8 hectáreas (con 5 unidades cada 83 hectáreas) podían tener derecho a recibir hasta 100 unidades. Además, las normas sobre subdivisión y PUD del condado de Teton permitieron la venta de lotes antes de la instalación de la infraestructura, lo que proporcionó un gran incentivo para el desarrollo especulativo.
Con posterioridad a la caída del mercado en 2008, algunos propietarios de desarrollos incompletos comenzaron a buscar maneras de reestructurar sus subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria. En 2010, Targhee Hill Estates presentó ante el condado una propuesta para realizar un nuevo plano catastral del centro de recreación que se había construido parcialmente (ver figura 3). No obstante, en ese momento no existía ninguna ordenanza municipal, ley estatal o procedimiento legal que permitiera la realización de un nuevo plano catastral para un desarrollo ya vencido.
La Asociación de Defensores del Desarrollo Responsable del Valle del Condado de Teton (VARD, por sus siglas en inglés) intervino solicitando al condado la creación de un procedimiento que fomentara el rediseño de las subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria y facilitara la realización de nuevos planos catastrales. La VARD comprendió que un rediseño del plano catastral podría reducir la intrusión en áreas naturales delicadas del condado, reducir los costos gubernamentales asociados con el desarrollo disperso y, posiblemente, reducir la cantidad de lotes vacantes mediante la colaboración con los propietarios y los promotores, a fin de agilizar los cambios en los planos catastrales existentes.
El 22 de noviembre de 2010, el consejo de administradores del condado adoptó por unanimidad una ordenanza sobre nuevos planos catastrales, que permitiría realizar de forma rápida y sin grandes costos nuevos planos catastrales de las subdivisiones, los PUD y los acuerdos de desarrollo existentes. Mediante esta ordenanza se creó un procedimiento orientado a las soluciones que permite al condado de Teton trabajar junto con los promotores, los propietarios, las entidades crediticias y otras partes interesadas a fin de resolver los proyectos complicados en los que intervienen muchos intereses de propiedad y, por lo general, implican millones de dólares en infraestructura.
La ordenanza, en primer lugar, establece cuatro categorías de cambios que puede proponer toda solicitud de nuevo plano catastral: (1) un aumento de grandes proporciones en cuanto a la escala y el impacto; (2) un aumento de menor envergadura en cuanto a la escala y el impacto; (3) una reducción de grandes proporciones en cuanto a la escala y el impacto; y (4) una reducción de menor envergadura en cuanto a la escala y el impacto. Todo aumento en el impacto podría requerir audiencias públicas y estudios adicionales, mientras que para las reducciones en el impacto, no son necesarios (en la medida de lo posible) dichos requisitos ni la revisión por parte de la agencia. Además, la ordenanza elimina la innecesaria duplicación de estudios y análisis que hubieran sido requeridos como parte de la solicitud y aprobación inicial del plano catastral. El condado de Teton también eliminó las tarifas que debían pagarse para procesar las solicitudes de nuevos planos catastrales.
El primer caso que obtuvo resultados positivos fue la realización de los nuevos planos catastrales del PUD de Canyon Creek Ranch, completado en junio de 2013. Ubicado a más de 37 km de los servicios urbanos, el proyecto Canyon Creek Ranch se aprobó originalmente en el año 2009 como un centro recreativo de estilo estancia de 350 lotes sobre aproximadamente 1.100 hectáreas, que incluía aproximadamente 25 lotes comerciales, un hipódromo y una cabaña. Después de largas negociaciones entre el equipo de promotores de Canyon Creek y el personal de la comisión de planificación del condado de Teton, el promotor propuso un nuevo plano catastral que reducía drásticamente el impacto y los efectos de este proyecto, ya que sólo incluía 21 lotes sobre la propiedad de 1.100 hectáreas. Para el promotor, este nuevo diseño reduce el precio de la infraestructura en un 97 por ciento: de US$24 millones a aproximadamente US$800.000, lo que permite que la propiedad permanezca dentro del programa de reservas de conservación y genere una fuente de ingresos, a la vez que se reducen las deudas por el impuesto sobre la propiedad. La reducción en la escala y el impacto de este nuevo diseño permitirá preservar este hábitat tan importante y mantener el paisaje rural, lo que representa un beneficio público para toda la comunidad.
Conclusión
Mientras que la recuperación del último ciclo de auge y caída es casi total en algunas áreas del país, otras comunidades seguirán sufriendo el impacto de los lotes vacantes y las subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria por un largo tiempo. Los auges inmobiliarios que se den en el futuro también darán como resultado, inevitablemente, nuevas caídas, por lo que las comunidades vulnerables pueden ahora construir fundamentos sólidos con políticas, leyes y programas para minimizar los nuevos problemas que surjan del exceso de derechos sobre los terrenos. Las comunidades y otras partes interesadas involucradas en el desarrollo inmobiliario harían bien en asegurarse de tener mecanismos que sirvan para adaptarse y ajustarse a las condiciones de mercado en constante evolución. En cuanto a las jurisdicciones que ya están teniendo problemas con las subdivisiones sujetas a ejecución hipotecaria, un ingrediente esencial para lograr el éxito será la disposición a reconsiderar las aprobaciones y proyectos pasados y reconocer los problemas derivados de los mismos. Aquellas comunidades que sean capaces de actuar eficazmente como facilitadoras además de entes reguladores, según lo demostrado en los casos de estudio presentados en este artículo, estarán mejor preparadas para prevenir, responder y solucionar los problemas que pudieran surgir como resultado del exceso de derechos de desarrollo.
Herramientas y recomendaciones adicionales
El presente artículo es una adaptación de un nuevo informe sobre enfoque en políticas de suelo del Instituto Lincoln, titulado Arrested Developments: Combating Zombie Subdivisions and Other Excess Entitlements, de Jim Holway con Don Elliott y Anna Trentadue. Para mayor información (incluidas buenas prácticas, recomendaciones sobre políticas, y una guía paso a paso destinada a las comunidades que enfrentan un exceso de derechos), puede descargar este informe sobre enfoque en políticas de suelo completo o solicitar una copia impresa del mismo (www.lincolninst.edu/pubs). También se encuentra disponible información adicional en el sitio web que acompaña el informe (www.ReshapingDevelopment.org).
Sobre los autores
Jim Holway, Ph.D., FAICP, dirige el proyecto Western Lands and Communities en el Sonoran Institute de Phoenix, Arizona. Holway se desempeña además como funcionario municipal electo en representación del condado de Maricopa en el Distrito de Conservación del Agua de Arizona Central.
Don Elliott, FAICP, es abogado especializado en el uso del suelo, planificador de ciudades y director de Clarion Associates en Denver, Colorado.
Anna Trentadue es abogada de planta de Valley Advocates for Responsible Development en Driggs, Idaho.
Recursos
Burger, Bruce y Randy Carpenter. 2010. Rural Real Estate Markets and Conservation Development in the Intermountain West. Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Elliott, Don. 2010. Premature Subdivisions and What to Do About Them. Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Preston, Gabe. 2010. The Fiscal Impacts of Development on Vacant Rural Subdivision Lots in Teton County, Idaho. Fiscal impact study. Teton County, ID: Sonoran Institute.
Sonoran Institute. Reshaping Development Patterns. PFR companion website www.ReshapingDevelopment.org.
Sonoran Institute. Successful Communities On-Line Toolkit information exchange. www.SCOTie.org.
Trentadue, Anna. 2012. Addressing Excess Development Entitlements: Lessons Learned In Teton County, ID. Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Trentadue, Anna y Chris Lundberg. 2011. Subdivision in the Intermountain West: A Review and Analysis of State Enabling Authority, Case Law, and Potential Tools for Dealing with Zombie Subdivisions and Obsolete Development Entitlements in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Valley Advocates for Responsible Development. www.tetonvalleyadvocates.org.
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Growing the International Land Conservation Network
Laura Johnson is an attorney and lifelong conservationist with more than 30 years of experience in nonprofit management. She is currently director of the new International Land Conservation Network (ILCN), a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and chair of the Land Trust Alliance board of directors.
Laura was the president of Mass Audubon from 1999 to 2012. Prior, she worked for 16 years at The Nature Conservancy as a lawyer, Massachusetts state director, and vice president of the northeast region.
Laura received a B.A. in history from Harvard University and a J.D. from New York University Law School. From 2013 to 2014, she was a Bullard Fellow at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University, where she completed a study on private land conservation efforts around the world.
LAND LINES: Your program, the International Land Conservation Network (ILCN), is new this year, but it has some antecedents at the Lincoln Institute. Can you tell us about that history?
LAURA JOHNSON: There are some wonderful connections between the new network and the Lincoln Institute’s past support of the innovative, capacity-building effort devoted to conservation that eventually became the Land Trust Alliance.
In the early 1980s, Kingsbury Browne, a prominent Boston lawyer, decided to take some time away from his law firm, and he used a sabbatical at the Lincoln Institute to explore the needs and opportunities of private land trusts in the United States. Up until that point, there was no nationwide effort to seek out the best examples of land protection activities, to share those ideas and best practices, or even to keep track of what was happening in land conservation around the country. Kingsbury Browne’s study led him, along with several other land trust leaders at the time, to start a new organization called the Land Trust Exchange, which connected the country’s small but growing conservation community through a newsletter and some basic research and training activities. The Lincoln Institute played a crucial role in helping to launch the Exchange, which grew over the years and changed its name to become the Washington, DC–based Land Trust Alliance. There were fewer than 400 U.S. land trusts in 1982 when the Exchange got started; now the Land Trust Alliance serves 1,200 land trusts all over the United States. The Exchange started out with a modest newsletter in the 1980s; now the Alliance provides an online learning center, a full conservation and risk management curriculum, and more than 100 webinars and 300 workshops that served close to 2,000 people in 2014.
LL: Throughout most of your career, you have been deeply engaged in U.S.-based land conservation work. What attracted you to expand your efforts on an international scale?
LJ: When I stepped down from the presidency of Mass Audubon two years ago, I began talking with Jim Levitt, a fellow at the Lincoln Institute, the director of the Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest, and a former Mass Audubon board member. It was initially his idea that I explore how conservationists outside the United States were using and adapting conservation tools that had been developed over the years here. Jim had become very involved in private conservation efforts in Chile, and there was an opportunity to strengthen the very new movement there by sharing U.S.-based measures such as conservation easements. At about the same time, Peter Stein received the Kingsbury Browne fellowship and award from the Land Trust Alliance and the Lincoln Institute, which allowed him to explore the breadth of worldwide conservation organizations as well. Through our different projects, Jim, Peter, and I came to the similar conclusion that many people around the globe shared a strong interest in connecting to each other and to U.S. conservationists. This desire for a community of practice seemed like a remarkable opportunity to help build capacity for privately protecting land.
LL: Why is this role the right challenge at the right time for you?
LJ: I have had the incredible good fortune to work with some great organizations and wonderfully talented people. As a young lawyer just starting out at The Nature Conservancy in the 1980s, I was able to grow professionally at a pivotal time for conservation in the United States. Looking at the historic trend lines, the U.S. land conservation movement took off then, and it was very exciting to be a part of that growth. Then when I went to Mass Audubon in 1999, I was able to run the nation’s largest independent state Audubon organization, which provided leadership not just with land conservation, but with environmental education and public policy as well. Now, I have the honor of serving on the board of the Land Trust Alliance, which does such remarkable work here in the United States to enable effective land and resource protection. Along the way, my legal training was certainly useful, but I have also learned a tremendous amount about what makes organizations successful and likely to have a positive impact. I feel very fortunate to have this background and set of experiences, and I want to bring it to bear on the issues facing the international land conservation community.
LL: You’ve mentioned capacity building and creating successful organizations a few times. Can you comment on what that means in the context of land conservation?
LJ: Land conservation organizations need all the elements of any sound nonprofit organization—a clear mission, a compelling vision and strategy, disciplined planning and clear goals, sufficient financial resources, and great people. But working on land protection requires a very long-term outlook. To start with, a land trust needs to have the knowledge and resources to assess what land should be protected—whether the mission is to conserve natural resources or scenic, cultural, or historic values—and what legal and financial tools are best suited to achieving a good outcome. Then it can take years of working with a landowner to get to a point where everyone is ready to agree on a deal. Land trusts need to have people with the training, knowledge, and experience to carry out transactions that are legally, financially, and ethically sound. Once land is protected by a trust, that organization is making a commitment to manage the land it owns or has restrictions on forever. Museums are a good analogy, but instead of Rembrandts and Picassos, land conservation organizations are stewards of invaluable living resources, and the land and water we all depend on to survive.
LL: Why is private land conservation particularly important now? Why do we need an international network?
LJ: We are at a critical juncture as the pressures of climate change, land conversion, and shrinking government resources are making it more challenging than ever to protect land and water for the public benefit. Therefore the mission statement of the new International Land Conservation Network emphasizes connecting organizations and people around the world that are accelerating voluntary private action that protects and stewards land and water resources. Our premise is that building capacity and empowering voluntary private land conservation will strengthen the global land conservation movement and lead to more long-lasting and effective resource protection.
Support for better coordination of international private land conservation is emerging from many sources. For example, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considered the role of private land conservation in the context of global efforts at its November 2014 World Parks Congress held in Sydney, Australia. The Futures of Privately Protected Areas, an IUCN-commissioned report released at that conference, provided a number of recommendations, such as developing relevant training and improving knowledge sharing and information, which are certainly important goals for the new network. We expect to work in collaboration with partners such as the IUCN, and with the existing regional or countrywide networks that are already in existence. And of course we have the very powerful example of the Land Trust Alliance and what it has been able to accomplish over 30 years to build the capacity of land trusts in the United States.
LL: What will you try to accomplish in the first year to address these needs?
LJ: We’ve had to get ourselves organized and deal with basic issues such as our name, visual identity, mission statement, goals, and governance structure. We will be designing and launching a website to serve as the essential repository of case studies, research, best practices, events, and conferences. Eventually, we want to have a continuum of learning available on the website through tools like webinars that address a range of subjects, from legal instruments to organizational best practices. We also want to carry out a census of existing networks and active organizations, to start building a baseline of knowledge about private land protection that will help measure progress over time.
LL: What are the greatest challenges to starting the network?
LJ: There are many. Money is a big one, of course. We’ve received a generous start-up grant from the Packard Foundation, and we have great support from the Lincoln Institute. But we are working hard to identify additional sources of funding, in order to grow the network and increase its impact. And of course we are still proving that the network will provide useful, important, and actionable information and training to meet a tremendous variety of needs within the international land conservation community. We know that we can’t do everything, so we must be strategic and choose activities that will have impact. The global scale also presents a host of cultural and logistical challenges, requiring us to navigate different legal systems, languages, customs, and, last but not least, time zones.
On the positive side, we already have a very committed group of land conservation practitioners who came together at our organizing meeting in September 2014 and enthusiastically signed on to be the “sweat equity”—to provide the network with knowledge, expertise, experience, and wise counsel. It’s already very clear to me that this is a wonderful group of colleagues who are doing interesting and important work around the globe. It will be an adventure—and I know I’ll learn a lot—to grow this new network together.
