Rampant informality, so emblematic of large cities in developing countries, poses many challenges for property taxation systems. For instance, tenure rights in informal settlements are often obscure or even unknown; buildings are constructed gradually over time, self-construction is common, and the whole unit may never be finished; property value depends on vague or intangible factors such as the security provided by community organizations; the occupant or even the legal owner may be too poor to pay taxes; administrative costs of tax collection are higher than in the formal areas, whereas assessed values are often much lower; and there is hardly any public investment in infrastructure and services.
These critical features of informal housing seem to violate many of the premises on which the administration of a property tax system is grounded: identification of taxable property and corresponding taxpayers; description of the property’s physical characteristics; determination of property values on a reasonable market basis and according to predictable measures; the taxpayer’s presumed ability to pay; collection costs that are relatively low compared to the revenue collected; and an expectation that tax revenues would benefit the area from which the tax was collected.
This comparison depicts the essence of the conventional wisdom on informal occupations and the reasons why they are generally disregarded for taxation purposes, but misconceptions and prejudices are evident. This article examines some of these biases and their consequences for property tax collection in informal areas. The Latin American situation is used to illustrate this debate, but this study is still exploratory due to limited data. The arguments discussed indicate promising directions for further analyses, rather than conclusive findings in most cases.
Informal Occupations
In land occupation and housing, informality is a multidimensional phenomenon involving thorny issues related to land tenure; noncompliance with urban norms and regulations, such as minimum lot size, allowance for public spaces, and street layouts; inadequate provision of public services and equipment; and occupation of improper areas, such as environmentally protected or ecologically risky areas and contaminated brownfield sites.
Slums originated by land invasions are the first image of informality that comes to mind, but other social and physical forms of informality range from pirate subdivisions, usually characterized by market sales of land having no clear title, to situations where even legally qualified owners with titled land do not conform to existing urban norms and regulations.
According to the United Nations–Habitat (2003), about 928 million people (32 percent of the world’s urban population or 43 percent of the population of developing countries) currently live in slums with precarious urban infrastructure and inadequate public services. If current trends and policies continue, the report estimates that slum populations will increase by 37 million per year to reach a total of 1.5 billion people in 2020. Although Latin America accounts for 9 percent of the world’s population, it comprises about 14 percent of those who live in slums.
Why is Informality a Problem?
Informality disorganizes the functioning of urban land markets, since illegal, irregular, and clandestine operators are able to reap higher profits by avoiding some costs, such as taxes, the cost of protecting the land from invasions, or the cost of providing basic urban infrastructure and services. Contrary to expectations, land prices per square meter in informal settlements are often higher than those in formal areas, when discounting investments related to the provision of water, electricity, drainage, sewerage, and other services.
Moreover, informality is expensive for society. The costs of curative policies to upgrade irregular settlements are higher than the cost of new land development, and indirect social costs include the presence of criminal activity and natural disasters caused by development in environmentally sensitive areas. The evidence also suggests that informality is both a cause and an effect of urban poverty. The geographic distribution of poverty tends to overlap with the spatial pattern of informal arrangements, although the magnitude and persistence of informality cannot be entirely explained by poverty. A survey conducted by the Instituto Pereira Passos (2002) based on the Brazilian Census of 2000 found that about 64 percent of the population classified as poor actually lived outside the slum areas.
Myths of Informality
There are many prevailing myths about how informal settlements are either established or operated, including the perception that occupants in informal areas are neither willing nor able to pay property taxes. In fact, not only are occupiers usually willing to pay the tax as a way to legitimate their land tenure, but they are often quite able to pay it. New occupants, in fact, have already paid the property tax in the form of higher land prices, yet the payment went to either the subdivider or original landowner instead of the government.
Moreover, payment of the property tax by occupants of informal areas is likely to legitimate their right to demand public services and other urban improvements from government authorities. Many informal occupants also realize that private provision of basic services through informal means, such as buying water from a truck, is likely to be more costly and risky than payment of the property tax.
Other myths or assumptions about informality include beliefs that occupants of informal settlements are necessarily poor; informal settlements are occupied only by unemployed and informal workers; formal property title is necessary to obtain access to credit; informal settlements are homogeneous entities clearly distinguished from formal settlements; and occupation of informal settlements is made through nonmarket transactions.
Property Tax Collection
In an attempt to relate property tax collection per inhabitant to the presence of informality, we used data based on a survey of municipalities conducted in 1999 by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE 2001). Table 1 presents data that measured two criteria: the occurrence of slums (i.e., informal settlements caused by invasions) and the existence of all types of irregular land development. Slums occur in 27.6 percent of all municipalities in Brazil, while irregular land development (including slums) occurs in almost 44 percent of them. The maximum value of property tax collected is higher in larger municipalities and those with slums and other irregular developments, and the revenues also tend to be higher on average than in those municipalities without such development.
However, Table 2 illustrates the difficulty of monitoring property ownership and tax collection records by comparing the presence of cadastres in municipalities with records on slums and informal settlements. Local cadastres cover information on slums in 52.5 percent of the municipalities in which they are found, but only 39 percent of those cities have complete records on informality. By comparison, 50.5 percent of municipalities with irregular land developments have this information included in their cadastres, and 51 percent of the cases with records have complete information. Thus, one cannot reject the hypothesis that the larger, richer, and more developed municipalities are also the ones with better records on informal occupations.
Using the IBGE database, a model for multiple regression analysis was developed to test the relationship between informality and the property tax collected per inhabitant. The relationship was controlled with other attributes available in the database, including the average income per inhabitant, the size of the population, and a group of variables associated with the role of the local administration in promoting urban development. Based on this model, which explains approximately 72 percent of the variation in the property tax collected per inhabitant, the following factors have proven to be influential in determining the amount of property tax collected.
In addition to the level of income, the findings clearly indicate the importance of an effective administration of the property tax. In other words, even in the presence of informality municipalities achieve better results in comparative terms if they maintain updated cadastres and maps, include informal properties in the cadastre, and have a broad framework of urban legislation. In summary, when focusing strictly on the property tax performance, the major cause of concern is not the presence of informality itself, but the way public officials deal with it for property tax purposes.
The Property Tax as a Tool to Reverse Informality
A more vigorous property tax is likely to affect informality directly. For instance, the portion of the property tax levied on land value constitutes a strong antidote to force the existing stock of serviced land to the market. The property tax may also be important as a tool to influence the decision-making process for which areas should receive urban services. Indeed, communities without a property tax system are particularly vulnerable when it comes to seeking public attention.
The property tax can also be an educational mechanism for helping citizens realize their rights and duties, including the need to contribute to public expenses. The government’s commitment to allocate tax revenues fairly and equitably provides greater legitimacy to the tax. Furthermore, a property tax may be one mechanism to reduce land prices through the capitalization effect (Bahl and Linn 1992). Usually local government recognition of occupancy has no direct, legal effect on guaranteeing property titles at the public registry, but informal occupiers may perceive it as a kind of a green card to access the legal world.
Rabello de Castro (2000) has argued that there are solid legal grounds to use cadastres for property tax purposes to legitimize tenure rights, and that the courts would have no difficulty in admitting such records as trustworthy evidence. Finally, there is an advantage for the property tax to cover informal property because its application requires specific knowledge of the area, which has immensurable value to the city management.
Policy Recommendations
Informality poses particular challenges to property tax administration, including the need to design feasible and politically acceptable procedures. Following are some policy recommendations for consideration.
Even though most informal property is excluded from the property rolls, the above requirements should be applied to informal properties if a higher level of efficiency in property tax collection is to be achieved. The argument about high collection costs to exclude low-valued properties (or low-income families for that matter) from the tax-rolls should be reckoned against the benefits of promoting broader fiscal citizenship.
A Longer View
The collection of property taxes in informal areas may be not only possible under certain circumstances, but also attractive for pursuing a more effective urban policy that is capable of mitigating informality and its negative effects for society in general and for individual occupants of these settlements in particular.
Despite the difficulty of providing empirical evidence on its theoretical impacts on the land market, the part of the property tax levied on the land value is likely to produce effects that are critical to mitigate the distortions and dysfunctions in land markets with a high degree of informality. These effects include stimulating land development; deterring land speculation; reducing land prices; increasing the supply of urbanized land; encouraging more compact cities; promoting more efficient provision of urban infrastructure and services; and encouraging a more rational pattern of development. Indirect benefits may include the relevance of the information generated to identify property, the use of paid property taxes as a paralegal means to legitimize tenure rights, and last but not least the opportunity for accessing citizenship and becoming integrated into society.
In summary, when focusing on the property tax performance, the major cause of concern is not so much informality itself, but the way public officials treat informality and how they administer a property tax system. In this context, the introduction of the property tax into an environment with rampant informality requires special caution. The challenges to operating the property tax in informal areas include the need to understand the informal market, curb intervening land ownership claims from previous or absent owners, improve administrative capability, and legitimize public actions that result in social benefits to the poor. In addition, public officials need to overcome prejudice and misconceptions regarding informality and introduce efficient property tax initiatives that may actually reduce informality.
About the Authors
Martim O. Smolka is senior fellow and director of the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Claudia M. De Cesare is a property tax advisor to the Secretariat of Finance in the municipality of Porto Alegre, Brazil. She is on the advisory board of the International Property Tax Institute (IPTI) and is a faculty member of the Lincoln Institute.
References
Abramo, Pedro. 2003. A teoria econômica da favela: quatro notas sobre a localização residencial dos pobres e o mercado imobiliário informal, in A cidade da informalidade: o desafio das cidades latino-americanas, Pedro Abramo (Org.). Rio de Janeiro: Librería Sette Letras, Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Bahl, R.W., and Johannes F. Linn. 1992. Urban Public Finance in Developing Countries. Washington DC: Oxford University Press.
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). 2001. Perfil dos municípios brasileiros: Pesquisa de informações básicas municipais, 1999. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE.
Instituto Pereira Passos. 2002. Evolução da população de favelas no Rio de Janeiro: Uma reflexão sobre os dados mais recentes. Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro. http://www.rio.rj.gov.br.
Rabello de Castro, S. 2000. Habitação: Direito e governança – Duas sugestões para ação governamental. Fundação João Ribeiro. Cadernos de Textos 2: 321–338.
UN–HABITAT. 2003. The challenge of slums: Global report on human settlements. Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Human Settlements Programme.
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Ciro Biderman is an associate professor in the graduate and undergraduate programs in public administration and in economics at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in São Paulo; associate researcher at the Center for the Study of the Politics and Economics of the Public Sector (CEPESP/FGV); and associate researcher at the Metropolis Laboratory of Urbanism at São Paulo State University (LUME/FAUUSP). He received his Ph.D. in economics at the FGV and his postdoctoral degree in urban economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007.
Biderman was a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy from 2006 to 2009, and he continues to teach courses and conduct research with Martim Smolka and others affiliated with the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean. He also consults on the economics and politics of local development for the World Bank and other organizations. His research interests include urban and regional economics focused on public policies at the subnational level, with particular emphasis on land policy interactions with real estate markets and transport costs.
He has published articles in academic journals, and coauthored or coedited three books, including the 2005 volume Economia do Setor Público no Brasil (Public Sector Economics in Brazil). At the Lincoln Institute he has written several Land Lines articles and working papers, all of which are available on the Institute Web site.
Land Lines: As a Latin American scholar specializing in land economics issues, how do you compare the state of the art of research in the region to other countries?
Ciro Biderman: In Brazil, as in most of Latin America, there is a lack of research in urban economics in general and in land issues in particular. The same is true to some extent in the United States and Europe, although the research interests are quite different, and urban economics is more in the mainstream in those countries.
Some relevant characteristics of cities in Latin America are similar to those in other developing countries, and all would benefit from additional research. For instance, despite the large informal market in Latin America, most economists have neglected that sector. Ironically, most urban economics analysis of informality has been conducted by U.S. and other international scholars.
Second, Latin American cities are usually not as sprawling as cities elsewhere, yet their historic downtowns are often deteriorated and we know little about why this is happening. Third, most countries in the region have recently adopted decentralization policies that shifted the responsibility for the provision of public goods to local governments. However, the revenues of local governments are low and most rely heavily on federal transfers.
Land Lines: How did you become associated with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy?
Ciro Biderman: My first contact was in 1998, when I was awarded a dissertation fellowship to finish my Ph.D. Working with Paulo Sandroni at FGV, I studied the impact on land prices of a zoning change in São Paulo. At the time, the central business district was expanding toward the southwest, but the expansion was blocked by Jardim Europa, then a low-density, high-end residential neighborhood. New office development bypassed the area, moving towards the new Luiz Carlos Berrini Avenue. To reverse this pattern, in 1996 the city changed the zoning in part of Jardim Europa, increasing density and auctioning building rights to encourage new development.
I compared the part of the neighborhood where zoning did not change with that which experienced exogenous changes from being a low-rise residential area to a high-rise, mixed-use area of high-end residential and office space. In an article written with Sandroni and Smolka (2006) we showed that the change in density increased land prices as expected.
The most interesting finding, however, was the local government’s capture of the land price increment through a fiscal mechanism called CEPAC (Certificate of Additional Potential of Construction). These certificates are auctioned as part of the process by which developers obtain building licenses in specified areas. In the adjacent neighborhood where business development had leapfrogged without CEPACs, the incremental land rent generated by the zoning change was instead captured by the developers.
Land Lines: What other research have you pursued at the Institute?
Ciro Biderman: Since becoming a visiting fellow in 2006, I have focused on the economics of informal housing, particularly on the extent to which urban regulation was statistically associated with different measures of informality, including the role of regulation on prices in formal and informal housing markets (Biderman 2008).
In a related study in 2009, Martim Smolka and I discussed the policy implications of how and why different international agencies define informality to reflect one or more housing attributes. The consequence is that different definitions produce different estimates of the incidence of informality. Thus, when governments improve only one informal housing attribute but not the others, they may report a reduction in informality when in fact there is none.
In a new line of research I am looking at the causes and consequences of sprawl in Latin America, focusing on ten large Brazilian cities. Preliminary findings show that these cities are less sprawled than their North American and European counterparts, but more than comparable Asian cities. Transport systems are based on the automobile, as in the United States, except that less than 10 percent of the population owns a car. Yet the socioeconomic spatial pattern is more similar to Europe, with the rich living in the center and the poor on the periphery.
Land Lines: You help the Latin America Program evaluate research proposals submitted for Institute funding. What have you learned from that experience?
Ciro Biderman: I have been involved in evaluating these proposals since 2006, and the number of high-quality scholarly applications has grown steadily. I have noticed that the research questions from Latin Americans scholars are often better presented than the techniques to address them, in contrast to what occurs in the United States.
I think this is a problem faced in many aspects of social science research, and not only in Latin America. Although the origins of urban economics were grounded in the connections among urban equilibrium, transport costs, and land prices, each of these fields has developed almost independently and there is a general need for more integrated analysis.
Land Lines: What do you see as the main strengths of Latin American researchers?
Ciro Biderman: Highly qualified professionals in Brazil and other countries often move between public office and academia. As a result, they are aware of the respective issues and needs in the public sector and academia, and may have a more direct impact on the implementation of urban policies.
Furthermore, researchers can bring to focus what is specific to Latin American cities compared to cities elsewhere, thus expanding the scope of applied research. For example, to the best of my knowledge, there is no economic model for housing demand that allows the quality of the housing to change in order to adjust housing consumption to budget constraints. This is quite a relevant question in Latin America, but not to researchers in the United States or Europe.
Land Lines: Can you elaborate on the kinds of issues facing scholars in different world regions?
Ciro Biderman: As with most social phenomena, patterns of land use have evolved historically. For instance, sprawl in the United States is closely related to the movement of high-income groups to the periphery of metropolitan areas. In Latin America the movement of income groups is usually in the opposite direction, with poor people seeking affordable land on the periphery.
Although fundamental principles of urban economic theory might apply, the consequences are quite different. Studying different patterns using the same theoretical framework would advance our understanding of urban economics.
Land Lines: What topics or issues are especially lacking in strong empirical work?
Ciro Biderman: In terms of land policy, in my opinion, we need more research on property taxation; the interactions of fiscal and regulatory policies with land use planning issues; socioeconomic patterns of sprawl; and the connections between land use and transport. The lack of research on the economics of the informal housing market is surprising since informal settlements represent more than one-third of the total urban housing stock in some countries. Although this problem could eventually be solved with subsidies, the amount of resources needed is probably prohibitive for most countries.
Currently there is a branch of the literature studying the impact of tenure security on general welfare, suggesting that titling programs may be improving welfare, but there are few similar studies on the impacts of slum upgrading programs. While some evidence suggests that inappropriate regulation may induce more informality, we do not yet fully understand the economic nexus between formal and informal housing markets. We also lack systematic cross-country studies.
Land Lines: Do you think there a trade-off between policy experience and technical research capability?
Ciro Biderman: As an economist, I know the virtues of the division of labor and gains from trade, so it is important that academics and public officials complement each other. Thus, researchers need to be as rigorous as possible and able to expose the unintended consequences of public policies, and policy makers must ensure that their policies are designed so they can be implemented effectively and efficiently to reach the intended goals.
For example, a major policy issue is how to increase the supply of affordable, high-quality housing for the poor in developing countries, which requires understanding the opportunity costs between affordability and quality. The trade-offs may be technical, but the alternatives are clearly political. How can this housing imbalance be fixed? Who has to pay the cost (the residents or the society)? What are the consequences of different policy options? These are practical questions. Empirical evidence that helps to evaluate current policies might be a major resource for a policy maker.
Land Lines: How do you think the Lincoln Institute can contribute to narrowing the gap between rigorous empirical research and policy relevance?
Ciro Biderman: I believe that the Institute is already doing that by working with both scholars and policy makers in a variety of programs and fellowship opportunities. Classroom and online courses offer training to policy makers to help improve their dialogue with researchers, and to young scholars to expand the pool of policy-sensitive researchers. The intensive courses in methods for land policy analysis also inform researchers about advances in urban economics theory and strengthen both their methodological skills and their knowledge of new analytical techniques.
References
Biderman, Ciro. 2008. Informality in Brazil. Does urban land use and building regulation matter? Working Paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Biderman, Ciro, Paulo Sandroni, and Martim Smolka. 2006. Large-scale urban interventions: The case of Faria Lima in São Paulo. Land Lines 18(2).
Smolka, Martim, and Ciro Biderman. 2009. Measuring informality in housing settlements: Why bother? Land Lines 21(2).
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Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 7 del CD-ROM Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.
Edesio Fernandes, abogado y urbanista brasileño radicado en Londres, es profesor con dedicación parcial de la Unidad de Planificación para el Desarrollo del University College de Londres. También se desempeña como coordinador de IRGLUS (Grupo internacional de Investigación sobre Legislación y Espacio Urbano) y es asociado de las Naciones Unidas/HABITAT. Entre sus intereses de investigación y docencia figuran la legislación, planificación y política de la gestión urbana y ambiental; la administración municipal y de ciudad y la legislación constitucional y los derechos humanos de países en vías de desarrollo. Durante las dos décadas pasadas ha trabajado activamente en el campo de regularización de suelos urbanos en América Latina y otras regiones.
Fernandes es coordinador de la Red latinoamericana de regularización del suelo urbano del Instituto Lincoln y ha dado clases en el Instituto durante varios años. Trabajó en la organización y enseñanza de un curso sobre regularización y mercados informales del suelo, realizado en octubre de 2001 y nuevamente en noviembre de 2002 en Lincoln House. En esta conversación con Martim Smolka, Senior Fellow y Director del Programa para América Latina y El Caribe del Instituto Lincoln, se exploran algunos de estos temas.
Martim Smolka: ¿Qué despertó su interés en el tema de los mercados informales del suelo y las políticas de regularización?
Edesio Fernandes: Mi interés en los problemas de los mercados informales del suelo se remonta al comienzo de la década de 1980. Poco después de graduarme de la Escuela de Leyes de la Universidad Federal de Minas de Gerais en Belo Horizonte, Brasil, comencé a trabajar para PLAMBEL, la agencia estatal encargada de la planificación metropolitana de Belo Horizonte. Esta ciudad, si bien fue una de las pocas planeadas de Brasil, fue proyectada con mapas y planos que no contemplaban zonas para las personas de bajos recursos que construyeron la ciudad. Para 1895, dos años antes de su inauguración, ya había 3000 personas viviendo en favelas.
Ese número creció considerablemente a lo largo de las décadas de intensa urbanización. En 1976 se aprobó un plan pionero de zonificación, pero nuevamente las favelas fueron pasadas por alto y se trataron como áreas no ocupadas. En 1983 participé en el equipo interdisciplinario Pro-FAVELA, que redactó una fórmula legal para incorporar estas áreas bajo un esquema revisado de zonificación. Fueron precisamente estos primeros trabajos como urbanista, así como mis labores de construcción de puentes académicos entre los estudios jurídicos y urbanos, que me permitieron explorar la naturaleza de la relación entre las leyes, la planificación y la exclusión socioespacial existente en las ciudades del tercer mundo.
MS: En general, ¿ha tenido esa legislación algún efecto en el estado de las favelas de Belo Horizonte y Brasil?
EF: Hasta la década de 1970 la política oficial brasileña hacia las favelas había sido de desalojo o abandono, con la ocasional prestación de servicios limitados exclusivamente por conveniencia política. El programa Pro-FAVELA fue una experiencia sin precedentes que persiguió materializar ese nuevo compromiso democrático a la inclusión sociopolítica y socioespacial de las favelas en el paisaje urbano. La fórmula aprobada se ha convertido en un paradigma de la regularización del suelo urbano en la mayoría de las ciudades brasileñas. La idea es que se deben crear “zonas especiales de interés social” dentro del esquema de zonificación de la ciudad, permitiendo que los reglamentos de planificación y zonificación se adapten a los requisitos específicos de los habitantes de las favelas. Además, la formulación de políticas específicas de tenencia de suelo debe combinarse con mecanismos inclusivos de planificación urbana y también con procesos institucionales participativos de gestión urbana. Esto permite la integración de asentamientos informales en el sistema de planificación formal y la introducción de servicios e infraestructuras para hacer frente a las omnipresentes desigualdades.
MS: ¿Están ya bien integradas estas metas a los sistemas jurídicos y administrativos de las ciudades brasileñas?
EF: Aunque es cierto que la legislación urbana ha mejorado en Brasil, también es cierto que la mayoría de los cursos de leyes no ofrecen módulos especializados en el uso y control del desarrollo del suelo urbano. Desde tiempos inmemoriales los profesionales de leyes—no sólo en Brasil, sino a lo largo de toda América Latina—han aprendido a adoptar un punto de vista obsoleto e individualista sobre los asuntos jurídicos, típico de una legislación liberal clásica no reformada y con una noción de derechos de propiedad absolutos. Como resultado, estas personas desconocen en gran medida los desarrollos jurídicos recientes y las implicaciones legales de la dinámica socioeconómica y los retos que presenta la urbanización acelerada, y no están conscientes del potencial de los diferentes principios jurídicos que apoyan la legislación urbana, sobretodo de la noción de la función social de la propiedad. Por tanto, no están preparados para lidiar con los inevitables conflictos que surgen del uso y desarrollo del suelo urbano.
Sin embargo, en el año 2001 tuvo lugar en Brasil un hito jurídico revolucionario con la aprobación de la Ley Federal n° 10.257 llamada “Estatuto de la Ciudad”, que se propone regular el capítulo original sobre políticas urbanas introducido por la Constitución de 1988. La nueva ley otorga apoyo legal a aquellas municipalidades que se comprometan a confrontar los graves problemas urbanos, sociales y ambientales que afectan directamente al 82 por ciento de los brasileños que habitan en las ciudades. En términos conceptuales, el Estatuto de la Ciudad rompió con la vieja tradición de derecho civil y establece la base para un nuevo paradigma jurídico-político para el uso y el control del desarrollo del suelo urbano. Las municipalidades deben formular políticas territoriales y de uso del suelo que combinen los intereses individuales de los propietarios con los intereses sociales, culturales y ambientales de otros grupos y de la ciudad como un todo. También se les exige integrar la planificación, legislación y gestión urbana con objeto de democratizar el proceso local de toma de decisiones y legitimizar un nuevo orden jurídico urbano con sesgo social. Asimismo, el Estatuto de la Ciudad puso en marcha instrumentos jurídicos para permitir que las municipalidades pongan en marcha programas de regularización de tenencia de suelo y facilitar el acceso a la vivienda y al suelo urbano.
MS: ¿Puede explicar la relación que hay entre la regularización, la seguridad de tenencia de tierra y las crecientes inquietudes sobre pobreza y justicia social?
EF: Por una parte, los programas de regularización que se concentran en proyectos de mejoramiento han tendido a descuidar los asuntos de tenencia de tierra, por ejemplo, el ponderado programa Favela-Bairro de Rio de Janeiro. Esto ha causado que dichos programas suelan tener resultados nocivos, tales como la ocupación por narcotraficantes, expropiación a la fuerza, e incluso—dada la relación cada vez más compleja entre mercados de suelo formales e informales—lo que se conoce como “desalojo por mercado”. Por otra parte, los programas de regularización que se concentran exclusivamente en la titulación formal de parcelas individuales, tales como los programas a gran escala inspirados por las ideas de Hernando de Soto, han tendido a reforzar las condiciones inaceptables de vida y la construcción de viviendas en áreas remotas, con ambientes desfavorables y desprovistas de servicios.
Por experiencia propia, he visto que los programas que han tratado de combinar las dos dimensiones, es decir, mejoramiento y legalización, tienden a ser los más sostenibles en términos urbanos, sociales y ambientales, así como también suelen tener un efecto más controlado en los mercados de suelo tanto formales como informales. Por tanto, pueden tener más eficacia a la hora de garantizar que los beneficiarios finales de la inversión pública sean justamente los habitantes de los asentamientos informales y no los promotores inmobiliarios y empresas constructoras quienes, al no ofrecer opciones que sean costeables, suficientes y adecuadas, son los primeros que han provocado el proceso de desarrollo informal.
MS: ¿Hasta qué punto han podido estos programas de regularización atacar o ayudar a resolver el problema de la pobreza?
EF: Los programas de regularización son siempre medidas curativas que hay que integrar con políticas preventivas de planificación urbana, medidas fiscales y legales y estrategias de gestión diseñadas para promover un cambio urbano general, y consecuentemente poder romper con ese ciclo característico que lleva a la informalidad urbana. Además, la única manera de que tengan un efecto más significativo sobre la pobreza urbana es combinándolos con otros programas que expandan el acceso a servicios urbanos y originen empleos y entradas económicas para aliviar la pobreza.
En esta discusión hay muchas suposiciones que no pueden darse por sentado, especialmente en vista de los resultados de estudios recientes. Durante años se han invertido cuantiosas sumas de dinero en programas de regularización. Ya es hora de hacer una evaluación crítica y completa. Todavía hay muchas interrogantes sin respuesta referentes a la naturaleza de los procesos que desencadenan los asentamientos irregulares, la manera de enfrentar el problema y el método práctico de poner en práctica las políticas, por ejemplo: ¿Cómo se originan los asentamientos informales? ¿Por qué es importante regularizarlos? ¿Cuándo y cómo se deben formular los programas de regularización? ¿Quién debe pagar por ellos, y cómo? ¿Qué pasa una vez que finaliza el programa?
MS: Como abogado, ¿qué ha aprendido sobre la propuesta legal a las políticas de titulación?
EF: En particular, debemos cuestionar críticamente ese razonamiento tan aceptado que proclama que los títulos son la condición fundamental para que los habitantes de los asentamientos informales tengan acceso a servicios y a crédito y, por ende, para invertir en sus casas y negocios. En general podemos decir que en situaciones consolidadas en donde la ocupación informal del suelo ha sido respaldada por la movilización sociopolítica de los residentes, se ha producido el acceso a servicios e infraestructura sin importar el estado legal de dichos residentes. Trabajos de investigación realizados en varios países ya indican que una serie de circunstancias socioeconómicas y político-institucionales puede crear una percepción de “seguridad de tenencia”, lo cual anima a las personas a invertir en mejoras a sus viviendas aun cuando no haya finalizado el proceso de legalización. Las investigaciones también han demostrado que las personas sin dinero y sin empleo no tienen acceso a créditos formales aunque tengan títulos, mientras que en algunos casos, la gente que tiene trabajo pero no títulos sí tiene acceso a crédito.
MS: ¿Sugiere Ud. entonces que la formalización de los títulos legales no es tan importante?
EF: No, lo que quiero decir es que aunque los títulos pueden aportar seguridad de tenencia individual, no garantizan necesariamente el acceso al crédito formal ni producen asentamientos sostenibles. La regularización por sí sola suele fracasar en lo que, en mi opinión, debería ser el objetivo máximo de los programas de regularización, es decir, la integración socioespacial de las comunidades y áreas informales. Ahora bien, los títulos son claramente importantes desde muchos puntos de vista, por ejemplo, para resolver conflictos domésticos, de familia y de vecindad y para reconocer legalmente los derechos sociopolíticos. El desafío planteado aquí es promover el reconocimiento de la seguridad de tenencia individual de una manera que sea compatible con la provisión de vivienda social, y de esa manera eliminar—o al menos reducir al mínimo posibleÔel proceso de segregación socioespacial. La única manera de lograr esto es mediante una combinación de mecanismos de planificación urbana y estrategias de gestión de ciudad, con políticas innovadoras de tenencia de suelo, con énfasis en la existencia de una gran variedad de opciones legales aparte de los derechos que implican la propiedad absoluta.
MS: El Instituto Lincoln ha participado activamente en estas materias en Latinoamérica durante casi diez años. ¿Tiene Ud. algún comentario final sobre cómo podemos ampliar esta labor?
EF: La centralidad de esta discusión de materias de suelo interrelacionadas—estructura de suelo, acceso al suelo y vivienda, gestión del suelo y control de desarrollo y planificación de uso del suelo—goza de un reconocimiento internacional cada vez mayor, lo cual confirma la importancia de los objetivos originales del Instituto Lincoln y de su programa general de investigación y enseñanza. El tema de desarrollo de suelo urbano informal es de interés para cualquiera que tenga inquietudes relacionadas con la justicia social y los derechos humanos, así como con las condiciones para la expansión de mercados en el contexto de globalización económica.
Para finalizar, quisiera realzar la importancia de la educación y discurso legales. Los cambios urbanos exigen reformas legales, las cuales a su vez requieren un entendimiento adecuado de la naturaleza, problemas y desventajas del orden jurídico imperante y de las posibilidades de cambio consiguientes. Es crucial seguir promocionando actividades comparativas de investigación y enseñanza como las que ya lleva a cabo el Instituto, así como también apoyar redes académicas y políticas tales como IRGLUS y la Red latinoamericana de regularización del suelo urbano. Hay un grupo muy pequeño de profesionales que ha explorado las interfases latinoamericanas entre legislación y planificación y entre legalidad e ilegalidad desde un punto de vista sociojurídico crítico; ese grupo necesita crecer. Hoy más que nunca es fundamental construir caminos jurídicos que respalden nuevos intentos de promover cambios urbanos positivos, incluidos los programas de regularización. Esto no es tarea fácil, pero estamos haciendo progreso.
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Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 2 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.
En el área metropolitana de Lima, el acceso a la tierra urbana por parte de los sectores populares presenta un historial de problemas que son resultado de la combinación de una ocupación irregular y espontánea de la tierra con políticas de corto alcance para regularizar la tenencia de las tierras. Estas políticas diseñadas para resolver o mitigar la ocupación irregular, en vez de contribuir a una solución, han aumentado el problema.
El seminario, “Los gobiernos locales y el manejo de la tierra urbana: Perú y América Latina”, llevado a cabo en Lima en febrero, reunió representantes municipales, expertos de América Latina y líderes de la comunidad para responder a la siguiente pregunta: ¿Asegura el actual marco regulatorio el crecimiento ordenado y equitativo de Lima y de las otras ciudades peruanas?. El programa fue organizado por el Instituto Lincoln; el Instituto de Desarrollo Urbano CENCA, una organización no gubernamental que basa su trabaja con las comunidades; la Asociación de Municipalidades del Perú, y la Red de Políticas de Suelo de la Coalición Internacional del Habitat (HIC).
Políticas de Regularización
Por regularización de la tierra se entiende en general el proceso de intervención pública en zonas ocupadas ilegalmente, a fin de proveer mejoras de infraestructura urbana y reconocer títulos de propiedad u otros derechos de ocupación. En muchos países en desarrollo se necesitan políticas de regularización para contrarrestar los patrones irregulares, y a veces ilegales, de desarrollo de la tierra, en que la ocupación del terreno e incluso la construcción de viviendas precede la instalación de obras de infraestructura y la documentación legal.
Desde 1961, el gobierno central de Perú ha apoyado políticas que permitieron que la población de bajos ingresos ocupara las tierras públicas vacantes, consideradas como un recurso natural de “banco de tierras”. La mayor parte de estos terrenos eran arenosos, casi desérticos, ubicados en los alrededores de Lima y de poco valor comercial. Un 34% de la población de Lima vivía en “barriadas” o asentamientos irregulares para 1993.
Ante la ausencia de políticas efectivas para asegurar el acceso legal y organizado a la tenencia de la tierra, la permisividad que llevó al desarrollo irregular de estas áreas periféricas ha llevado a una crisis que domina actualmente la discusión de las políticas relativas a la tierra urbana (Figura 1). Muchos funcionarios gubernamentales y otros observadores reconocen que el sistema en sí mismo fomenta y permite el crecimiento informal e irregular, y que algunas de las políticas diseñadas para regularizar la tierra han contribuido en la práctica a crear más irregularidades.
Problemas del Manejo de la Tierra Urbana
El manejo de las políticas de la tierra urbana en Perú está siendo reexaminado a causa de tensiones entre el gobierno central y el gobierno local. Entre 1981 y 1995, las municipalidades administraron los procedimientos, autorizaciones y políticas relacionados con la regularización de la tierra. En 1996, el gobierno peruano centralizó la administración de los recursos económicos sobre la vivienda y el desarrollo urbano, retomando los temas de regularización. Esta centralización política, administrativa y fiscal ha creado serias ineficacias e ineficiencias, puesto que aún las agencias de los gobiernos locales tienen que responder a las demandas diarias de la población con respecto a tierra y vivienda, y no tiene ya un control integral de esta problemática.
También existen tensiones a causa de las contradicciones entre el marco legal y el mercado informal de las transacciones cotidianas. Esta falta de relación se refleja en la falta de comprensión y desconfianza que existe entre las autoridades y los agentes privados e individuos que operan fuera del marco de las políticas formales.
A pesar de los intentos por parte de municipalidades y organizaciones no gubernamentales por mejorar la coordinación e implementación de las políticas de la tierra que afectan a los mecanismos formales e informales del mercado formal e informal, los líderes políticos todavía toman la decisión final. Esta situación se ve sujeta a la politización de la administración pública, por ejemplo, a través de políticas creadas para satisfacer a los políticos en vez de la comunidad. Al mismo tiempo, esta situación fomenta las perspectivas a corto plazo, puesto que la autoridad gobernante está más interesada en el trabajo inmediato que en el seguimiento detallado de planes de desarrollo que requieren de un plazo más largo para su ejecución. Como resultado, los problemas graves de crecimiento de Lima no reciben una respuesta adecuada por el marco regulador, legal y político actual.
Problemas Comunes
Un resultado importante de este seminario en Perú fue el intercambio de experiencias con otras ciudades latinoamericanas y asiáticas, en las cuales los gobiernos locales pueden utilizar recursos públicos para promover ciudades urbano más ordenadas. Aún cuando los problemas del manejo de la tierra son amplios y complejos, ciertos problemas comunes fueron identificados para ser discutidos en programas futuros:
Julio Calderón, investigador urbano y consultor en programas de desarrollo social, está afiliado a Red Suelo, la red de políticas de la tierra de la Coalición Internacional para el Habitat.
Figura 1: Políticas de Regularización de la Tenencia de la Tierra en Lima
Febrero 1961-1980: Se estableció la Ley 13517, responsabilizando a varias agencias del gobierno central para regularizar los procedimientos de tenencia de la tierra, pero sólo se emitieron 20.000 títulos.
1981-1995: La función de emisión de títulos fue transferida a la Municipalidad de Lima y la entrega de títulos de propiedad de la tierra aumentó a unos 200.000. En los años noventa la capacidad de entrega de títulos disminuyó gradualmente hasta generar una crisis en el mercado de la tierra.
Abril 1996: La Comisión del Estado de Formalización de la Propiedad Informal (COFROPI) asumió las responsabilidades que estaban asignadas a la municipalidad. A partir de la promesa presidencial de incorporar la población de bajos ingresos al proceso del mercado de la tierra, se entregaron cerca de 170.000 títulos de propiedad entre julio de 1996 y julio de 1997. Se espera que 300.000 títulos más sean emitidos para el año 2000. Sin embargo, COFROPI afirma que el 90% de los títulos entregados antes de 1995 presentan problemas de registro, de manera tal que muchos de los títulos entregados desde 1996 son revisión de otros entregados anteriormente. En consecuencia, es difícil reconstruir la cantidad exacta de títulos emitidos bajo cada administración.
Algunas Definiciones
Ilegal – Ocupación de la tierra que contradice expresamente las normas existentes, el código civil y la autorización pública.
Informal – Actividad económica que no se adhiere a las reglas institucionales y que no está protegida por ellas, en oposición a la actividad formal que opera dentro de los procedimientos establecidos.
Irregular – Subdivisión que está aprobada oficialmente pero que no ha sido ejecutada de acuerdo con la ley.
Clandestina – Subdivisión establecida sin reconocimiento oficial.
One of the characteristics that makes working on land policy in Latin America so fascinating is the ever-present contrast between the characteristics that are common throughout the region and the anomalies that make each country’s relationship with land unique.
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El plan de ordenamiento territorial de una ciudad, por lo general, describe las metas y objetivos de desarrollo mediante el uso de diferentes tipos de mapas y documentos escritos. La mayoría de los mapas y otras representaciones de diseño urbano se elaboran con una visión en dos dimensiones (2D), que luego se traducen en instrumentos regulatorios y herramientas de planificación estratégica también bidimensionales. El espacio urbano se representa en mapas que se asemejan a un rompecabezas cuyas piezas planas serían las áreas administrativas (municipales, rurales, urbanas, en crecimiento, en expansión, limítrofes), las áreas según el uso de los inmuebles (residencial, comercial, de negocios, histórico, turístico, informal, recreativo), las áreas de protección medioambiental o de uso restringido (zonas de captación de aguas, áreas inundables, colinas propensas a los deslizamientos), entre otras. Es así como el espacio urbano real 3D se gestiona mediante leyes y otras convenciones basadas en una visión 2D, lo cual evidencia que la ciudad física y la ciudad legal funcionan en dimensiones diferentes y, de cierta forma, incompatibles.
En el pasado, esta discrepancia era aceptada, ya que los mapas 2D constituían el principal recurso disponible para representar la ciudad real; no obstante, en la actualidad los gráficos computarizados pueden gestionar objetos complejos en el espacio.
Resulta necesario, entonces, reformular los aspectos legales y económicos de la sociedad urbana, pasando de la visión tradicional 2D a un enfoque 3D, con el fin de desarrollar, implementar y controlar las políticas de suelo urbano de manera más eficiente.
Cuando el espacio urbano se describe mediante mapas digitales integrados a bases de datos en un Sistema de Información Geográfica (SIG), diferentes capas de información pueden ser adicionadas para dar una visión más próxima de la realidad en 3D. Un catastro 3D es una de las herramientas que puede facilitar este proceso, pues está compuesto de un sistema de bases de datos integradas que contiene información sobre títulos de propiedad inmobiliaria, características físicas de los inmuebles, modelos econométricos que describen los valores inmobiliarios, redes de transporte, infraestructura y servicios, y atributos medioambientales.
Creación de un nuevo marco 3D
Google Earth ha popularizado la información geográfica, ya que permite a los usuarios visualizar un lugar virtual en 3D, al nivel de detalle que desee y en un entorno global. Este y otros programas geográficos pueden utilizarse con bastante facilidad para cambiar el punto de vista de la realidad. Si el usuario pasa de una vista desde arriba (que muestra la ciudad como una superficie plana) a una perspectiva oblicua, podrá observar el relieve y la altura de los edificios, árboles, redes aéreas de servicios públicos y otros objetos en el espacio.
Mediante este tipo de visualización en 3D se pueden identificar espacios sin desarrollar, edificios de diferentes alturas, viviendas suburbanas diseminadas, estructuras en áreas rurales aisladas y construcciones precarias en asentamientos informales, todo lo cual permite inferir cambios necesarios en el uso del suelo. Cuando el espacio 3D se representa en una pantalla plana o en impresiones en papel, se muestran detalles que resultan difíciles de identificar en un mapa 2D, tales como el movimiento de la sombra durante el día, diferentes vistas desde la ventana de un apartamento y las relaciones espaciales entre edificios y elementos naturales.
La tecnología 3D en constante evolución está cambiando los paradigmas de la planificación urbana y la política de suelo, ya que afecta no sólo la forma en que se ve una ciudad sino la manera en que se describen los derechos de propiedad y sus restricciones en el espacio. Como resultado, es necesario contar con un nuevo marco legal urbano basado en leyes 3D y catastros 3D que puedan describir objetos en el espacio en lugar de presentar solamente sus contornos planos. Las leyes 3D afectan a los derechos en el espacio, y no más en un plano de proyección, y sólo a través de un marco normativo con esas características resultará posible definir políticas de suelo en 3D.
Por ejemplo, una representación 3D del alcance de la edificabilidad máxima para un conjunto de lotes facilitaría el uso de los instrumentos de gestión de suelo, tales como las tasas para la adquisición de derechos de edificación para nuevos desarrollos. Para poder utilizar un marco legal en 3D es necesario que los datos espaciales se encuentren sistemizados en catastros 3D, mediante los cuales se crean y mantienen en forma actualizada bases de datos espaciales y representaciones volumétricas de ciudades, así como también un registro de la propiedad 3D donde se identifique y documente cada una de las propiedades y sus correspondientes restricciones en el espacio.
Los agrimensores, geólogos, biólogos e ingenieros tienen cierta facilidad para determinar, mediante mallas de puntos con coordenadas espaciales, la ubicación de objetos físicos en el espacio tales como depósitos minerales, masas de agua, plumas de contaminación, emisiones en el aire o en capas subterráneas, espacios de acceso restringido alrededor de cables de alta tensión, etc. Sin embargo, los legisladores y planificadores urbanos no están familiarizados con el hecho de describir e interpretar las intersecciones de esos objetos en el espacio. La complejidad creciente de la infraestructura urbana y de las áreas con un gran nivel de densidad de edificación requiere el registro adecuado de su condición legal (privada o pública), la cual puede ser realizada con los registros catastrales 2D que existen en la actualidad, aunque sólo hasta cierto punto.
A pesar de su potencial como herramienta de planificación urbana y del gran nivel de investigación y progresos logrados hasta la fecha, no existen jurisdicciones que posean un verdadero catastro 3D con una funcionalidad completa. Los conceptos en constante evolución involucrados en este nuevo proceso deberán estar basados en la norma ISO 19152 Modelo de Dominio de Administración de Suelos (LADM, por sus siglas en inglés), que brinda un soporte para representaciones 3D (van Oosterom 2011).
La ciudad virtual 3D
La primera idea que, por lo general, viene a la mente al considerar una ciudad 3D es su representación de las construcciones en formas regulares, a través de cubos, prismas y cilindros. No obstante, estas formas simples han demostrado ser insuficientes a la hora de analizar el espacio urbano. Buscando contar con un método que se corresponda más adecuadamente a la realidad, los investigadores y diseñadores han desarrollado técnicas para superponer fotografías de fachadas de edificios sobre las caras de los cuerpos geométricos. Con la popularización de los programas de diseño asistido por computadora (CAD, por sus siglas en inglés), la representación de las características arquitectónicas de los edificios en 3D se tornó más fácil.
Estos tres tipos de edificios virtuales 3D generalmente se colocaban en una superficie de referencia plana, lo cual creaba una falsa imagen de la ciudad puesto que mostraba a todos en un mismo nivel. Al agregar el relieve mediante perspectivas digitales basadas en modelos digitales de terreno, los edificios virtuales en 3D pasaron a colocarse en el nivel de altitud correcto en relación con el nivel del mar, obteniendo un posicionamiento espacial más preciso. El próximo paso consistió en superponer ortofotos aéreas sobre el relieve digital, lo cual dio como resultado imágenes 3D de las ciudades (físicas) que resultan mucho más reales aún (ver figura 1).
En la actualidad, los modelos urbanos 2D y 3D continúan elaborándose con puntos, líneas, polígonos e imágenes. Todos estos modelos son útiles, pero todavía insuficientes a la hora de llevar a cabo un análisis urbano detallado, ya que, como lo señala el geógrafo brasileño Milton Santos, “geometrías no son geografías” (Câmara 2000). De hecho, para desarrollar políticas de suelo se utilizan diferentes tipos de datos geográficos: sociales, físicos, económicos y medioambientales, todos los cuales tienen lugar en el espacio y, por lo tanto, deben ser relacionados con los elementos de la ciudad virtual.
El SIG contribuye al proceso de construir una ciudad virtual 3D, ya que permite el enlace entre los datos estadísticos y las formas geométricas para generar imágenes de información temática que pueden aplicarse a diferentes cuestiones relacionadas con las políticas de suelo. Para los fines de la planificación urbana, una imagen 3D creada en una plataforma de SIG es, por lo general, más útil que la propia fotografía del mismo sector, puesto que a través del sistema se puede resaltar datos de interés, crear posibles escenarios que anticipen los efectos económicos de ciertas decisiones en cuanto a políticas de suelo e inclusive evaluar el impacto al medioambiente de algún nuevo desarrollo.
Ciudades virtuales 3D formales e informales
La ciudad virtual 3D representada en forma geométrica resulta útil en distintos tipos de análisis, tales como los estudios sobre tránsito vehicular, la propagación de las ondas emitidas por estaciones de radio o cualquier tipo de análisis sobre redes de infraestructura. No obstante, para otros tipos de análisis, la ciudad virtual 3D no llega a ser suficiente. Por ejemplo, un abogado o un economista necesita visualizar la ciudad formal 3D – es decir, la ciudad definida en las normas urbanas y medioambientales. La figura 2 muestra dos imágenes en las que se ven manzanas de una ciudad virtual 3D: una representa los edificios existentes y la otra indica el potencial de desarrollo según las normas urbanas aplicables. Las diferentes densidades de construcción implican valores distintos de los inmuebles y, consecuentemente, diferentes bases económicas para la definición de la política tributaria y de recuperación de plusvalías. Estas dos ciudades conforman la ciudad virtual 3D formal.
En América Latina, donde la incidencia de la informalidad es emblemática en el paisaje urbano, resulta importante visualizar y definir tanto la dimensión informal como las dimensiones legales de la ciudad. Los asentamientos informales se desarrollan cuando las familias no logran acceder a las viviendas ofrecidas por el mercado o por los programas sociales. La gente necesita encontrar algún lugar donde asentarse, lo que con frecuencia ocurre en terrenos peligrosos o protegidos que resultan inadecuados para vivienda, o en terrenos vacantes, ya sean estos públicos o privados. La magnitud de la necesidad de una vivienda por lo general supera la cantidad de terrenos disponibles, lo que obliga a las residentes a verticalizar los asentamientos informales, construyendo estructuras más altas y con mayores niveles de densidad. Es así que se desarrolla la ciudad virtual 3D informal (ver figura 3).
Cada espacio ocupado es una componente de la ciudad, por lo tanto, la formalidad cuanto la informalidad deben tenerse en cuenta en las bases de datos de los catastros urbanos. La tarea de conectar la ciudad virtual informal con la ciudad virtual formal es un desafío mucho mayor en 3D que en 2D, puesto que, entre otras razones, los propietarios y los ocupantes de un mismo espacio compartido pueden ser diferentes. En estas áreas, la infraestructura también está organizada en forma diferente, mientras en la ciudad formal, las redes de infraestructura pública consisten en cañerías fijas, cables, caminos y vías de ferrocarril regulares y estables, en la ciudad informal las redes de infraestructura frecuentemente son construidas por los mismos habitantes mediantes mangueras y cables suspendidos que cambian constantemente de posición a medida que el asentamiento se va extendiendo. Un catastro 3D que integre todos los datos puede informar a los planificadores urbanos cuáles son las brechas existentes entre la oferta y la demanda de terrenos para construcción por parte de la población, lo que contribuye a definir políticas que aborden la cuestión de los asentamientos informales no planificados.
Ciudades dinámicas 3D
Los cambios que van ocurriendo en las ciudades pueden visualizarse y medirse de diferentes maneras, como por ejemplo, mediante estudios sobre la densificación, migración y expansión de las redes de infraestructura. Estos estudios se basan en la suposición de que las variables sociales, económicas y medioambientales se encuentran en constante movimiento, mientras que el terreno es estático. No obstante, otras fuerzas capaces de producir cambios en la ciudad pueden causar desplazamientos de diferentes intensidades que pueden medirse en el espacio (3D) y el tiempo (4D). Por ejemplo, las placas continentales están provocando que América del Sur, sus ciudades, sus propiedades públicas y privadas y sus redes de infraestructura se muevan lentamente hacia el oeste a razón de 2 cm por año. Estos movimientos, que parecen insignificantes, tienen consecuencias sobre las políticas urbanas puesto que, dentro de 50 años, una propiedad podrá moverse hasta 1 metro de su ubicación actual.
Por otro lado, la naturaleza dinámica de la tierra genera movimientos mucho más extremos. El terremoto que afectó la región chilena del Bio-Bio en febrero de 2010 provocó impactos a diferentes escalas. Según las mediciones llevadas a cabo por el Observatorio Geodésico Integral Transportable (TIGO, por sus siglas en inglés) en la ciudad de Concepción, la totalidad del territorio se movió durante 30 segundos inicialmente hacia el noroeste y luego terminó con un desplazamiento de 3 metros hacia el suroeste. Durante este episodio, la altura del suelo se modificó en 50 cm. El movimiento telúrico corrió propiedades y destruyó infraestructura y edificios urbanos, siendo que el daño se agravó con el tsunami posterior. Un patrón similar se observó durante el terremoto que azotó al país en 1960, el más grave registrado en el mundo, cuando el suelo se movió con tal intensidad que algunas propiedades (o parte de ellas) desaparecieron en el mar y otras emergieron.
El terremoto ocurrido en enero de 2010 en Haití produjo, en 35 segundos, una cantidad de escombros estimada en 20 millones de m3, pero no se registraron desplazamientos del suelo significativos del territorio.
Desde el punto de vista del catastro, estas dos catástrofes tuvieron impactos muy diferentes. Si la información urbana hubiera estado estructurada en capas temáticas e integrada en una plataforma SIG, el terremoto de Haití habría afectado a la capa correspondiente a las construcciones y habrían desaparecido varios edificios representativos. En Chile, la capa correspondiente a las construcciones se vio modificada principalmente por el tsunami, mientras que la capa de terrenos sufrió desplazamientos y cambios espaciales derivados del movimiento telúrico. Las catástrofes naturales de estas características que ocurren con tanta rapidez modifican el entorno y la vida de las personas en forma radical y tienen importantes implicaciones en cuanto a las prioridades de los gobiernos, tales como la definición e implementación de políticas de suelo, tanto antes como después de ocurridos dichos eventos.
Los impactos del cambio climático, la contaminación subterránea y la contaminación del aire, por ejemplo, pueden preverse mediante modelos matemáticos con buena precisión, aún antes de que ocurran. Al conectar estos modelos con las bases de datos espaciales de un catastro 3D es posible crear escenarios derivados de los impactos potenciales en el espacio 3D e identificar los barrios y propiedades que podrían verse afectados. Los fenómenos como los terremotos y las inundaciones súbitas, aún cuando sean impredecibles, pueden representarse mucho más rápidamente si los instrumentos de medición utilizados por las agencias medioambientales o los organismos gubernamentales se conectan con las bases de datos espaciales de los catastros 3D. La representación espacial del impacto puede estar disponible para los tomadores de decisión apenas ocurrida la catástrofe.
En resumen, la representación 3D puede contribuir a definir políticas de suelo preventivas para abordar los cambios predecibles, así como también permitir el reajuste de las políticas de suelo actuales con posterioridad a una catástrofe natural.
Redes e infraestructura 3D
Las redes de infraestructura y transporte se mueven a lo largo del territorio de diferentes maneras, lo que permite a la ciudad permanecer activa y fluida. Algunas de estas redes son invisibles por naturaleza, tales como las microondas emitidas por los teléfonos celulares, mientras que otras son invisibles porque son subterráneas, tales como los túneles y cañerías de infraestructura. Otras redes son fácilmente visibles puesto que están construidas sobre la superficie, tales como los caminos y los cables de servicios públicos. La figura 4 ilustra algunas de las complejas intersecciones espaciales de redes de infraestructura y transporte a lo largo de la ciudad 3D.
Las relaciones espaciales entre redes y propiedades públicas y privadas, reservas ambientales, depósitos minerales, masas de agua y otras características no se han tratado eficientemente en las normas cartográficas en 2D, por lo que requieren el desarrollo de nuevas normas específicas en 3D con el fin de hacer cumplir la función social de la propiedad con equidad y justicia. Por ejemplo, el artículo 1.286 del Código Civil Brasileño estipula que un propietario estará obligado a ceder el derecho de paso a través de su propiedad para la colocación de cables, cañerías y otros conductos subterráneos con fines públicos cuando no puedan construirse en ningún otro lugar. La ley también establece la necesidad de determinar cuál será la superficie afectada por los proyectos de obras públicas en cada lote y su correspondiente valor, a fin de calcular la compensación que recibirá el propietario. Los registros catastrales 3D pueden convertirse en un importante aporte que facilite dichas operaciones puesto que los catastros 2D actuales no están siendo eficientes.
Valor del mercado inmobiliario 3D
Una de las funciones de un catastro territorial es la de proporcionar información con el fin de determinar el valor de los terrenos útil para definir las políticas tributaria y de planificación urbana. En América Latina, los valores de los terrenos por lo general se calculan según métodos de valuación ad hoc (tales como el costo de reposición), en los que se utilizan datos de construcción y valores de terrenos para cada sector catastral (Erba 2008). Esta práctica no siempre genera valuaciones confiables, ya que resulta difícil mantener actualizadas las bases de datos catastrales y su implementación puede resultar arbitraria según el lugar donde se aplique.
Un método alternativo de valuación que actualmente se está implementando en la región consiste en el uso de modelos econométricos espaciales para determinar los valores de las propiedades con el nivel de precisión estadística deseable. Esto resulta importante debido a que los valores de los terrenos cambian según el espacio urbano y dependen de variables tales como normas urbanas, restricciones medioambientales, vistas panorámicas, infraestructura y otras características asociadas a la propiedad como, por ejemplo, elementos subterráneos o aéreos relacionados a ella.
Las plataformas de SIG más modernas desarrolladas para catastros 3D permiten al valuador “pararse” dentro de un edificio en cualquier altitud incluso antes de que éste se construya. El sistema le permite conocer la vista que se tendrá desde la ventana de la vivienda, identificar las relaciones existentes con otros edificios, percibir el paisaje natural y observar otras características relevantes de la propiedad. Dichos datos permiten determinar la importancia de factores externos al valor de la propiedad, un aspecto que con frecuencia no se tiene en cuenta en las valuaciones realizadas según los métodos tradicionales como el costo de reposición.
La figura 5 muestra una perspectiva del gradiente de la superficie de valores de terrenos por m2, obtenidos a partir de puntos de referencia correspondientes a propiedades en venta. La superficie posee el mismo sistema de coordenadas de referencia (x, y) que la ciudad y si bien la tercera dimensión espacial (z) no se encuentra relacionada con el espacio geográfico (altitud), es posible colocar la superficie debajo de la ciudad virtual legal y analizar la correlación espacial existente entre el valor del m2 de terreno y las normas urbanas respectivas. Este tipo de aplicación es otro posible aporte al desarrollo de políticas de suelo basadas en técnicas catastrales 3D.
Conclusiones
Aunque las tecnologías utilizadas para medir, representar y almacenar información actualmente están evolucionando hacia las plataformas 3D, la legislación urbana y las políticas de suelo continúan viendo a las ciudades como superficies planas. La posibilidad de visualizar en 3D los edificios y las restricciones que rigen sobre las propiedades representa un avance considerable para aquellos responsables de tomar decisiones referentes a las cuestiones urbanas. No obstante, queda un largo camino por recorrer antes de que la información 3D se integre como parte de la legislación urbana y los títulos de propiedad.
La consolidación de un catastro 3D, que registre de qué manera la propiedad 3D se cruza con las normas y regulaciones legales correspondientes, contribuiría a una mayor efectividad de la planificación urbana y medioambiental, el diseño de redes de infraestructura mejor posicionadas y la prevención de la informalidad, ya que posibilita la construcción de posibles escenarios futuros que muestren el impacto de las políticas de suelo en el espacio. El primer paso para darle a la legislación urbana y medioambiental una connotación 3D sería cambiar el término “área” por “espacio”, lo que implicaría una manera simple y relevante de iniciar el proceso de introducción de este nuevo paradigma. La estructuración de un registro de la propiedad 3D se encuentra aún en vías de desarrollo pero, una vez establecido, los propietarios finalmente comprenderán que son dueños de metros cúbicos en lugar de metros cuadrados.
Sobre el autor
Diego Alfonso Erba es fellow del Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, donde coordina los programas de educación a distancia del Programa para América Latina y el Caribe. Además, investiga, publica y dirige estudios relacionados con el catastro territorial y las aplicaciones SIG.
Referencias
Câmara, Gilberto. 2000. http://mundogeo.com/blog/2000/01/01/geometrias-nao-sao-geografias-o-legado-de-milton-santos/
Erba, Diego A. 2008. Catastro e información territorial en América Latina (CD-Rom). Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/1542_Catastro-e-Informaci%C3%B3n-Territorial-en-Am%C3%A9rica-Latina
van Oosterom, Peter. 2011. Preface of the Proceedings 2nd International Workshop on 3D Cadastre. Delft, The Netherlands. http://3dcadastres2011.nl/
Reconocimientos
El autor agradece a los siguientes colegas y amigos su aporte al desarrollo de investigaciones en este campo de conocimientos: Anamaria Gliesch-Leebmann, I Design Concepts 4 You, Seeheim-Jugenheim, Alemania; Everton da Silva, Universidad Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brasil; João Norberto Destro, Aeroimagem S/A; Igor Bacigaluppi, Gobierno Regional de Bio-Bio, Chile; Sergio Baeriswyl Rada, Municipio de Concepción, Chile; Andrea F. T. Carneiro, Universidad Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Brasil; Eduardo A. A. Augusto, Instituto Catastral Brasileño (IRIB), São Paulo, Brasil; y Martim Smolka y Anna Sant’Anna, Programa para América Latina y el Caribe en el Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
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Edesio Fernandes is a Brazilian lawyer and city planner based in London, where he is a part-time lecturer at the Development Planning Unit of University College London. He is also coordinator of IRGLUS (International Research Group on Law and Urban Space), a partner of United Nations/HABITAT. His research and teaching interests include urban and environmental law, planning and policy; local government and city management; and constitutional law and human rights in developing countries. For the last two decades, he has focused on the field of urban land regularization in Latin America and other regions.
Fernandes has lectured and taught in courses at the Lincoln Institute for several years and he coordinates the Institute’s Latin American Network on Urban Land Regularization. He helped organize and teach a course on informal land markets and regularization held at Lincoln House in October 2001, and is teaching the course again in November 2002 (see page 19). This conversation with Martim Smolka, senior fellow and director of the Lincoln Institute’s Program on Latin America and the Caribbean, explores some of these issues.
Martim Smolka: How did you become interested in informal land markets and regularization policies?
Edesio Fernandes: My interest in the problems of informal land markets goes back to the early 1980s, shortly after I graduated from Minas Gerais Federal University Law School in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. I began working at PLAMBEL, the state agency in charge of the metropolitan planning of Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil’s few historic planned cities. However, its detailed plans and maps did not reserve areas for the lower-income people who built the city, and as early as 1895, two years before its inauguration, 3,000 people were already living in favelas.
This number grew considerably over decades of intensive urbanization. In 1976, a pioneering zoning scheme was approved, but the favelas were again ignored and treated as unoccupied areas. In 1983, I participated in the interdisciplinary Pro-FAVELA team that drafted a legal formula to incorporate these areas into a revised zoning scheme. It was through this early work as a city planner, and by building academic bridges between legal and urban studies, that I came to explore the nature of the relationship between law, planning and sociospatial exclusion in third world cities.
MS: Has that legislation had any effect on the status of favelas in Belo Horizonte and Brazil in general?
EF: Until the 1970s, the official policy in Brazil towards favelas was eviction or neglect, with the occasional introduction of limited services for political convenience. The Pro-FAVELA program was a groundbreaking experience that sought to materialize the city’s newly recognized democratic commitment to sociopolitical and sociospatial inclusion of the favelas into the urban fabric. The approved formula has become a paradigm for urban land regularization in most Brazilian cities. The notion is that “special zones of social interest” should be created within the city’s zoning scheme, permitting planning and zoning regulations to be adapted to the specific requirements of the favela dwellers. Moreover, the formulation of specific land tenure policies should be combined with both inclusive urban planning mechanisms and participatory institutional processes of city management. This allows for the integration of informal settlements into the formal planning apparatus and for the introduction of services and infrastructure to redress long-standing inequalities.
MS: Are these goals now well integrated into the legal and administrative systems in Brazilian cities?
EF: Urban legislation has evolved in Brazil, but most Brazilian law courses do not offer specialized modules on urban land use and development control. Legal professionals in Brazil, and throughout Latin America, have long been trained to adopt an obsolete and individualistic approach to legal matters, typical of unreformed classical liberal legalism, and particularly the notion of absolute property rights. As a result, they are still largely unacquainted with recent legal developments, uninformed about the legal implications of socioeconomic dynamics and the challenges posed by rapid urbanization, unaware of the potential of different legal principles supporting urban legislation, especially the notion of the social function of property, and thus they are unprepared to deal with inevitable conflicts over the use and development of urban land. A groundbreaking legal development, though, took place in Brazil in 2001, with the enactment of Federal Law No. 10.257, entitled City Statute, which aims to regulate the original chapter on urban policy introduced by the 1988 Constitution. The new law provides consistent legal support to those municipalities committed to confronting the grave urban, social and environmental problems that directly affect the 82 percent of Brazilians who live in cities. In conceptual terms, the City Statute broke with the long-standing tradition of civil law and set the basis for a new legal-political paradigm for urban land use and development control. Municipalities must formulate territorial and land use policies, balancing the individual interests of landowners with the social, cultural and environmental interests of other groups, and the city as a whole. They are also required to integrate urban planning, legislation and management so as to democratize the local decision-making process and legitimize a new, socially oriented urban-legal order. The City Statute also recognized legal instruments to enable municipalities to promote land tenure regularization programs and facilitate access to urban land and housing.
MS: Can you elaborate on the connections between regularization, security of land tenure and broader concerns of poverty and social justice?
EF: On one hand, regularization programs focusing on upgrading projects have tended to neglect underlying land tenure issues, for example in the highly acclaimed Favela-Bairro program in Rio de Janeiro. As a result, these programs have frequently produced unintended perverse effects, such as occupation by drug lords, expropriation by force, and even, given the increasingly complex relationship between formal and informal land markets, what has been called “eviction by the market.” On the other hand, regularization programs focusing exclusively on the formal titling of individual plots, such as the large-scale programs inspired by the ideas of Hernando de Soto, have tended to reinforce unacceptable housing and living conditions in unserviced areas that are frequently remote and environmentally unsuitable.
In my experience, those programs that have tried to combine the two dimensions, upgrading and legalization, tend to be the most sustainable in urban, social and environmental terms. Comprehensive programs also tend to have a more controlled impact on both formal and informal land markets. Thus, they can be more effective in guaranteeing that the ultimate beneficiaries of the public investment will indeed be the residents in informal settlements, not the land developers and promoters who, by failing to offer affordable, sufficient and adequate housing options to the poor, have provoked the process of informal development in the first place.
MS: To what extent have these regularization programs really addressed or helped to resolve the problem of poverty alleviation?
EF: Regularization programs are always curative and need to be integrated with preventive urban planning policies, fiscal and legal measures, and management strategies aimed at promoting overall urban change, thus breaking with the cycle that has long produced urban informality. Moreover, they can only have a more significant impact on urban poverty if they are combined with programs aimed at broadening access to urban services and generating jobs and income to alleviate poverty.
There are many assumptions in this discussion that should not be taken for granted, especially given the findings of recent research. An enormous amount of money has been invested in regularization programs over the years, and it is about time that a comprehensive and critical review was promoted. There are many questions still left unanswered regarding the nature of the processes leading to irregular settlements, the means to address the issue and the method of actually implementing policies: How are informal settlements produced? Why is it important to regularize them? When and how should regularization programs be formulated? Who should pay for them, and how? What happens after the program is completed?
MS: What have you learned, as a lawyer, about the legalistic approach to titling policies?
EF: In particular, one should question critically the widely accepted argument that titling is the fundamental condition for residents in informal settlements to have access to services and credit, and thus to invest in their houses and businesses. On the whole, in consolidated situations where informal land occupation has been supported by sociopolitical mobilization of the residents, access to services and infrastructure has taken place regardless of their legal status. Research in several countries has already indicated that a set of socioeconomic and political-institutional circumstances may create a perception of security of tenure, thus encouraging people to invest in home improvements, even when the legalization process has not been completed. Research has also shown that jobless poor people have failed to gain access to formal credit even when they have titles, whereas untitled but employed people do get access to formal credit in some cases.
MS: Are you suggesting that the formalization of legal titles is not that important?
EF: No, what I mean is that it may indeed provide individual security of tenure, but it does not necessarily guarantee access to formal credit and does not produce sustainable settlements. Regularization alone usually fails to achieve what I think should be the ultimate objective of regularization programs—the sociospatial integration of the informal areas and communities. That said, titling is indeed important from many perspectives, such as to resolve domestic, family and neighborhood conflicts and to legally recognize sociopolitical rights. The challenge is to promote the recognition of individual security of tenure in a way that is compatible with the provision of social housing, thus reverting, or at least minimizing, the process of sociospatial segregation. The only way to do that is through a combination of urban planning mechanisms and city management strategies with innovative land tenure policies, stressing that there is a wide range of legal options other than individual freehold rights.
The importance of the topic is undeniable as the combined processes of urbanization and poverty are increasing internationally. UN figures suggest there are about 840 million people living in slums today, and reasonable projections suggest there will be 1.5 billion by 2020. This growing urbanization of poverty has already had many negative socioeconomic, political and environmental consequences, which tend to be aggravated by the processes of immigration and widespread organized crime.
MS: The Lincoln Institute has been deeply involved in these issues in Latin America for almost ten years. Do you have any final comments on how we can expand this work?
EF: The centrality of this discussion of intertwined land matters—land structure, access to land and housing, land management, and land use planning and development control—has been increasingly recognized internationally, confirming the relevance of the Lincoln Institute’s original mandate and overall research and teaching agenda. I believe the discussion of informal urban land development is of interest to all concerned about matters of social justice and human rights, as well as the conditions for market expansion in the context of economic globalization.
In closing, I would like to emphasize the importance of legal education. Urban change requires legal reform, which in its turn requires an adequate understanding of the nature, problems and shortcomings of the prevailing legal order, as well as the possibilities for change that it entails. The promotion of comparative research and teaching activities, such as those already supported by the Institute, is crucial, as well as support for academic and policy networks such as IRGLUS and the Latin American Network on Urban Land Regularization. The group of professionals in Latin America who have explored the interfaces between law and planning, and between legality and illegality, from a critical, sociolegal viewpoint is still quite small and needs to be widened. More than ever, it is imperative that we construct a sound legal discourse to provide support for new attempts to promote positive urban change, including by means of regularization programs. This is not an easy task, but we have been making progress.
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Access to urban land by the popular sectors in metropolitan Lima has a troubled history resulting from the combination of spontaneous, unregulated land occupation and short-sighted policies to regularize land tenancy. Policies that were designed to resolve or mitigate irregular occupations have instead exacerbated the problem.
A workshop on “Local Governments and the Management of Urban Land: Peru and Latin America” in Lima in February brought together municipal officials, Latin American experts and community leaders to address the question, “Does the current regulatory framework guarantee the orderly and fair growth of Lima and other Peruvian cities?” The program was organized by the Lincoln Institute; the Institute of Urban Development CENCA, a community-based nongovernmental organization; the Local Governments Association of Peru; and Red Suelo, the land policy network of the Habitat International Coalition.
Regularization Policies
Land regularization is generally understood as the process of public intervention in illegally occupied zones to provide urban infrastructure improvements and to recognize ownership titles or other occupancy rights. Regularization policies are needed in many developing countries to reverse irregular and sometimes illegal development patterns, such as when land is occupied and housing is built before infrastructure improvements and legal documentation are put in place.
Since 1961, the central government of Peru has supported tolerant policies that have permitted the poor to occupy vacant public land, which was seen as a natural “land bank” resource. Most of this land consisted of sandy, almost desert terrain surrounding Lima which had little commercial value and was considered unsuitable for other market uses. Some 34 percent of Lima’s population lived in irregular “barriadas” or new towns in 1993.
In the absence of policies to effectively provide for organized and legal access to land, the permissiveness that allowed irregular development of these outlying areas has led to a crisis that now dominates the urban land policy agenda (see Figure 1). Many officials and other observers acknowledge that the system itself encourages and permits informal and unregulated growth, and that some of the policies designed to regularize land have actually created more irregularities.
Urban Land Management Problems
Management of urban land policies in Peru is presently being reevaluated because of tensions between central and local government control. Between 1981 and 1995, the municipalities managed land regularization procedures, authorizations and related policies. In 1996 the Peruvian government centralized the administration of economic resources relating to habitation and urban development, thereby denying local governments the ability to manage regularization problems. This political, administrative and fiscal centralization has created serious inefficiencies, however, since local government agencies must nevertheless respond to daily demands from the population regarding land and housing concerns.
Tensions also exist because of contradictions between the legal framework of formal regulations as promulgated by public officials and the informal market transactions that occur in the “real world” on a day-to-day basis. The mismatch between these formal and informal norms is reflected in the lack of understanding and distrust between the political authorities who determine land market policies and the urban practitioners and private agents who operate outside the formal policy framework.
In spite of attempts by commercial and nongovernmental organizations to improve the coordination and implementation of land policies that affect formal and informal market mechanisms, the political leaders still make the final decision. This situation exacerbates the politicization of public management (i.e., politics for politicians and not for the community). At the same time, it encourages a short-term perspective, since a governing authority is generally more interested in the immediate work to be accomplished than in a reliable follow-up of development plans requiring longer-term execution. As a result, Lima’s serious growth problems are not being adequately addressed by the current political, legal and regulatory framework.
Common Concerns
An important result of this workshop in Peru was the sharing of experiences from other Latin American and Asian cities where local governments can use public resources to promote more orderly cities. Even though the problems regarding land management are wide-ranging and complex, some common concerns emerged for discussion in future programs:
development of public policies and community-level initiatives to capture the value of “intermediate” land that is in the process of being developed and is often the most vulnerable to speculation;
municipal housing programs that use existing legal frameworks to encourage an orderly occupation of space. Specifically, there is a need to promote coordination among various public and private agents, as well as mechanisms to support financial credit for low-income people, housing construction, basic utility services and neighborhood participation strategies.
land regularization policies and a comprehensive articulation of land access policies to break the vicious cycle of irregularities that is causing the current urban growth and management problems.
better understanding of the dynamics of both formal and informal land markets, especially on the part of those who are charged with developing and implementing appropriate policies to address complex land market activities.
Some Definitions
Illegal – land occupation that expressly contradicts existing norms, civil codes and public authorization
Informal – economic activity that does not adhere to and is not protected by institutional rules, as opposed to formal activity that operates within established procedures
Irregular – subdivisions that are officially approved but are not executed in accordance with the law
Clandestine – subdivisions that are established without any official recognition
Figure 1: Regularization Policies on Land Tenancy in Lima
February 1961-1980: Law 13517 was established to make various central government agencies responsible for regularizing land tenancy procedures, but only 20,000 titles were issued.
1981-1995: The titling function was transferred to the Municipality of Lima and the delivery of land titles increased to some 200,000. In the 1990s the delivery capacity gradually decreased until it generated a land market crisis.
April 1996: The State Commission to Formalize Informal Property (COFROPI) was given responsibilities that were formerly assigned to the municipality.
Following a presidential promise to incorporate the poor into the land market process, some 170,000 property titles were delivered between July 1996 and July 1997. An additional 300,000 titles are expected to be delivered by the year 2000. However, COFROPI states that 90 percent or 180,000 of the titles delivered prior to 1995 have recordkeeping problems, so that many of the 170,000 titles delivered since July 1996 may be redundant. Hence, it is difficult to reconstruct how many titles were properly delivered under each administration.
Julio Calderon, an urban researcher and consultant on social development programs, is affiliated with Red Suelo, the land policy network of the Habitat International Coalition.
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Population density has been identified by many analysts as a key indicator of the efficiency and sustainability of human development patterns.
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A city’s master plan typically describes development goals and objectives through the use of multiple maps and written documents. Most maps and other representations of urban design are built with a two-dimensional (2D) vision and then transferred into regulatory instruments and strategic planning tools. Urban space is treated as being flat and divided up into puzzle pieces such as administrative areas (municipal, rural, urban, growing, expanding, fringe); land use areas (residential, commercial, central business, historic, tourist, informal, recreational); environmentally protected or restricted area (water catchments, floodplains, landslide-prone hills); and other categories.
When urban space is described through digital maps integrated with databases in a geographic information system (GIS), many additional layers of information can be considered in a three-dimensional (3D) platform. However, when real 3D urban space is managed by laws and other conventions based on a 2D vision, the physical and legal cities are operating in quite different and incompatible dimensions. This discrepancy was accepted in the past, when 2D maps were the primary resource available to represent the real city, but nowadays computer graphics can handle more complex objects in space.
Rethinking the legal and economic aspects of urban society by shifting from the traditional 2D vision to a 3D approach will be necessary to develop, implement, and control urban land policies more efficiently. A 3D cadastre is one of the tools that can facilitate that process through spatial databases and representations. The institution of a territorial cadastre is familiar in many countries, but does not exist in the same way in the United States. A modern cadastre is an integrated database system that holds information on land registration and ownership, physical characteristics, econometric modeling for property valuation, zoning, geographic information, transportation networks, infrastructure and services, and environmental attributes, all of which are linked to socioeconomic and demographic information on property owners.
Creating a New 3D Framework
Google Earth has popularized geographic information by allowing users to visualize a virtual 3D location at the desired level of detail and in a global environment. Google Earth and other geographic software can be used quite easily to change the viewpoint of reality. Moving from a top-down view, which shows the city as a flat area, to an oblique perspective permits the viewer to see the relief and height of buildings, trees, aerial utility networks, and other objects in space.
This type of 3D visualization can identify undeveloped spaces, buildings of different heights, scattered suburban housing, structures in isolated rural areas, and precarious slum construction, thus helping to infer changes in land uses. Even when 3D images are represented on a flat screen or printed surface, they show details that are hard to identify in a 2D map, such as shadow movements during the day, views from an apartment window, and spatial relationships between buildings.
The constantly evolving 3D technology is changing the paradigms of urban planning and land policy because it impacts not only how the city is viewed but the way property rights and other restrictions in space are described. As a result, a new urban legal framework based on 3D laws and 3D property registries will be needed to describe objects in space instead of just flat con-tours. The 3D laws affect rights in space, not in a plane of projection, and in this context it will be possible to define 3D land policies.
For example, a 3D image of the basic, maximum, and actual floor-area-ratio (FAR) for a set of land parcels would facilitate the use of land management instruments such as charges for the purchase of building rights for new development. To support a 3D legal framework it is necessary to have spatial data systematized on 3D cadastres, which create and maintain up-to-date spatial databases and volumetric representations of cities, as well as a 3D property registry in which every property and its restrictions are identified and documented.
Land surveyors, geologists, biologists, and engineers are accustomed to determining the location of physical objects in space by specifying attributes such as mineral deposits, water bodies, contamination or fumes in the air or underground, or restricted spaces around power lines, but legislators, urban planners, assessors, and others are not used to describing the intersections of more than two attributes in space. The increasing complexity of infrastructure and densely built-up areas requires the proper registration of their legal status (private and public), which can be provided only to a limited extent by the existing 2D cadastral registrations.
Despite its promise as a tool for urban planning and the extensive research and progress in practice to date, no country has a true 3D cadastre with complete functionality. The evolving concepts involved in this new process should be based on the ISO 19152 Land Administration Domain Model (LADM), which provides support for 3D representations (van Oosterom 2011).
The Virtual 3D City
The first idea that usually comes to mind regarding a 3D image is its representation in regular shapes such as cubes, prisms, and cylinders, but these simple forms have proved insufficient to analyze urban space. Seeking a closer match with reality, researchers and designers have developed techniques to overlay photographs of building facades on building contours, and to represent all architectural characteristics of a building using 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software.
However, even these types of virtual 3D buildings typically were placed on a flat reference plane, which created a false image because it showed all buildings at the same level. By adding relief through digital perspectives based on digital terrain models, virtual 3D buildings could be placed at the correct altitude relative to sea level. The next step was to overlay aerial orthophotos on digital relief images, resulting in much more realistic 3D images of the real (physical) city (figure 1).
Presently, 2D and 3D urban models continue to be built with points, lines, polygons, and images. These models are useful but still insufficient for detailed urban analyses because, as noted by the Brazilian geographer Milton Santos, “Geometries are not geography” (Câmara 2000). In fact, several kinds of geographic information are used to develop land policies—human, physical, economic, and environmental—and all of them occur in space.
GIS contributes to the process of building a virtual 3D city by permitting linkages between statistical data and geometric shapes to generate thematic information images that can be applied to a variety of land policy issues. The 3D image created in a GIS platform is frequently more useful for urban planning purposes than a photograph of the same sector because the 3D platform makes it is possible to highlight certain information of interest, create prospective scenarios that anticipate the economical effects of certain land policy decisions, or evaluate the environmental impacts of new development.
Formal and Informal Virtual 3D Cities
The virtual 3D city represented geometrically is useful in several types of analyses, such as vehicle traffic studies, propagation of cell phone waves, or any type of infrastructure network analysis. For other kinds of analysis, even the virtual 3D city is not sufficient, as when a lawyer needs to visualize the legal 3D city as defined by urban and environmental regulations. Figure 2 shows two sets of virtual 3D city blocks, one representing existing buildings and the other indicating the development potential of those buildings based on the applicable urban regulations. These two images show different densities and consequently variable land and property values, but in both cases the property tax base and potential value capture charge can be estimated precisely.
In Latin America, where the incidence of informality is emblematic of the urban landscape, it is important to visualize and define the informal as well as the legal dimensions of the city. Informal settlements develop when households cannot afford housing supplied by the market or by social programs. People must find a place to settle, which is often on hazardous or protected land that is inappropriate for housing, or on vacant public or private land. The magnitude of the need for housing often surpasses the amount of land available, thus forcing informal settlers to build taller structures at higher densities (figure 3).
Every occupied space is a part of the city and should be considered in the urban databases of the cadastre. The task of connecting the virtual informal city with the rest of the virtual city is a bigger challenge in 3D than in 2D due to complexities in dealing with parcels where owners and occupants are different but may share the same space. Infrastructure is also organized differently in these areas. In the formal city, for example, public infrastructure networks consisting of fixed pipes, cables, roads, and rails are regularized and stable. In the informal city, infrastructure networks are often self-built and change constantly as the settlement expands. A 3D cadastre can inform planners of the gaps between the characteristics of the population demanding shelter and the effective supply of land and its attributes, thus helping define policies to address unplanned informal settlements.
3D Dynamic Cities
Changes taking place in cities can be visualized and measured in several ways, for example through studies of densification, migration, and expansion of infrastructure networks. These studies assume that social, economic, and environmental variables are constantly changing although the land is static. However, other forces that produce change in the city can cause dislocations of different intensities that can be measured in space (3D) and time (4D). For example, the continental plates are moving South America, its cities, public and private properties, and infrastructure networks slowly toward the west at the rate of 2 centimeters (cm) per year. These movements, which seem insignificant, have consequences for urban policy if one considers that in 50 years a property could be moved as much as 1 meter from its current position.
Even more extreme movements are the consequence of the dynamic nature of our planet. The earthquake in February 2010 impacted the Chilean region of Bio-Bio at many different scales. Measurements by the Transportable Integrated Geodetic Observatory (TIGO) in the city of Concepción recorded that the entire territory moved initially toward the northwest and then ended with a displacement of 3 meters toward the southwest, all within 30 seconds. During this event, the height of land shifted by 50 cm. The telluric movement carried away properties and destroyed urban infrastructure and buildings, and the damage was compounded by the subsequent tsunami. A similar pattern was observed during Chile’s 1960 earthquake, the most severe ever registered in the world, when the ground moved with such velocity that some properties disappeared into the sea and other land areas emerged.
The January 2010 earthquake in Haiti produced an estimated 20 million cubic meters of debris in 35 seconds, even though significant land displacements were not registered. From the point of view of the cadastre, however, these two disasters had very different impacts. If the urban information had been structured in thematic layers and integrated in a GIS platform, the earthquake in Haiti would have affected the construction layer and several representative building types would have disappeared. In Chile, the construction layer was modified mainly by the tsunami, but the land itself was affected by the spatial displacement and shifts resulting from the telluric movement. Fast-moving natural disasters like these change the environment and people’s lives radically, and have important implications for government priorities, including definitions and implementation of land policy, both before and after such events.
Predictable climate change events, underground contamination, air pollution, and other such data can be mathematically modeled before they happen. By connecting these models with the spatial databases of a 3D cadastre, it is possible to create prospective 3D scenarios of the potential impacts and identify the neighborhoods and properties that could be affected. Unpredictable phenomena such as earthquakes and sudden flooding can be represented much more quickly if the measurement instruments tracked by environmental institutions or government agencies are connected to the spatial databases of 3D cadastres. The spatial representation of the impact can be made available soon after the event.
In sum, the 3D representation can help define preventive land policies to address predictable changes and also enable the readjustment of current land policies after unpredictable natural events.
3D Networks and Infrastructure
Infrastructure and transport networks move through 3D parcels in different ways and allow the city to remain active and fluid. Some of these networks are invisible by nature, such as the microwaves of cellular phones; others are invisible because they are located underground, such as infrastructure tunnels and pipes; and others are easily visible because they are built on the surface, such as roadways or utility lines. Figure 4 illustrates some of the complex spatial intersections that occur in the overlapping layers of infrastructure and transportation networks within 3D parcels.
These spatial relationships among networks and public and private properties, environmental reserves, mineral deposits, water bodies, and other features have been treated inefficiently through 2D cartographic norms, but they require the development of specific, new 3D norms to enforce the social function of property with equity and justice. For example, Article 1.286 of Brazil’s Civil Code states that a landowner is obligated to provide a right of way through her property for cables, pipes, and other underground conduits that serve the public at large and could not be built elsewhere. The law also outlines the need to determine the amount of area affected by public works projects in each parcel and its corresponding value in order to calculate the compensation due to the owner. 3D cadastral records can be an important contribution to facilitating such transactions.
3D Land Market Value
One of the functions of a territorial cadastre is to provide information to determine the value of the parcels with respect to property taxation and urban planning policies. In Latin America, land values generally have been based on ad hoc valuation methods (such as the replacement value of buildings) that use construction data and land values for each cadastre sector (Erba 2008). This practice does not always produce reliable valuations because it is difficult to keep the cadastral databases up-to-date, and the implementation of the valuation methods may be arbitrary from place to place.
An alternative valuation method now being implemented across the region is the use of spatial econometric models to determine property values with the desired level of statistical precision. This is important because land values change across urban space and depend on variables such as urban regulations, environmental restrictions, scenic views, infrastructure, and other features associated with the property, such as underground or airborne elements.
The most modern GIS platforms developed for 3D cadastres even allow the assessor to “stand” inside a building at any given altitude before the building is constructed. The software allows the assessor to see the view that will be available from the window of the dwelling, identify relationships to other buildings, perceive the natural landscape, and note other relevant characteristics of the property. Such data help determine the relevance of externalities to the value of the property, an aspect often neglected in valuations based on traditional replacement value methods.
Figure 5 shows a perspective of the surface gradient of land values per square meter obtained from sample points corresponding to properties for sale. The surface has the same coordinate reference system (x, y) as the entire city. Even when the spatial third dimension (z) is not related to the geographic space, it is possible to put the surface under the legal virtual city (as shown in figure 2) and analyze the spatial correlation between the land value per square meter and relevant urban regulations. Such an application is another possible contribution to the development of land policies based on 3D cadastre techniques.
Conclusions
While the technologies used to measure, represent, and store information are now evolving toward 3D platforms, urban legislation and land policies continue to approach the city as a flat land surface. To visualize the buildings and the restrictions imposed on properties in 3D is a considerable advancement for those responsible for urban decision making. Nevertheless, there is a long way to go before 3D information is integrated as part of urban legislation and property titles.
The consolidation of a 3D cadastre, which registers how 3D parcels intersect with the corresponding legal norms and regulations, would contribute to more effective urban and environmental planning, infrastructure network design, and the prevention of informality by permitting the construction of future scenarios showing the impacts of land policies in space. Changing the term area to space would be a first step in giving urban and environmental legislation a 3D connotation, and would be a simple and relevant way to start the process of introducing this new paradigm. Structuring a 3D property registry is still under development, but when it is established landowners will understand that they own cubic feet instead of only square feet.
About the Author
Diego Alfonso Erba is a fellow at Lincoln Institute of Land Policy where he coordinates distance education programs for the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean. He also researches, publishes, and manages studies on cadastre and GIS applications.
References
Câmara, Gilberto. 2000. http://mundogeo.com/blog/2000/01/01/geometrias-nao-sao-geografias-o-legado-de-milton-santos/
Erba, Diego A. 2008. Catastro e información territorial en América Latina (CD-Rom). Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
van Oosterom, Peter. 2011. Preface of the Proceedings 2nd International Workshop on 3D Cadastre. Delft, The Netherlands http://3dcadastres2011.nl/
Acknowledgments
The author thanks these partners and colleagues in the development of research in this field of knowledge: Anamaria Gliesch-Leebmann, Design Concepts 4 You, Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany; Everton da Silva, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil; João Norberto Destro, Aeroimagem S/A; Igor Bacigaluppi, Regional Government of Bio-Bio, Chile; Sergio Baeriswyl Rada, Municipality of Concepción, Chile; Andrea F. T. Carneiro, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil; Eduardo A. A. Augusto, Brazilian Land Registry Institute (IRIB), São Paulo, Brazil; and Martim Smolka and Anna Sant’Anna of the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
