Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects?

Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? Daniel Casas Valle, Nuno Travasso Centre for architectural and urban studies (CEAU), at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto (FAUP) - [email protected], +351 93 261 01 74 - [email protected], +351 92 909 30 86 “Facing the evident mismatch, it was needed to put aside the idea – typical of planning technicians – that the world is wrong when compared to abstract models which are right; instead of thinking that the problem may be that our theoretical and technical tools are not adapted to reality.” (Portas, [1986] 2006) Figure 1. Urbanisation of V.N. Famalicão - a diffuse and fragmented urban landscape Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? 1. Introduction In the diffuse urbanized pattern of the Ave Valley region (Norwest of Portugal), the dominant urban morphology is one of unclear reading. The fragmented and discontinuous urban form is the result of a layered urban landscape with a big variety of urban patterns. In contrast to compact urban settlements, this region has a very dispersed urban image. Such image is determined not only by specific physical and social conditions but also by the planning instruments and established daily practices that shape common urbanisation processes. Although the diffuse urban landscape and the fragmented urbanisation process are since long recognized and studied (Secchi, 1984; Portas, [1986] 2006; Sá, 1986; Indovina, [1990] 2004; Neutlings, 1990), certainty is that there are still missing the means, models and instruments capable of guiding action in these territories, based on their own logics, in order to improve their legibility and intelligibility (Sieverts, [1997] 2003). Furthermore, Cavaco (2009) emphasises the existing of a mismatch between the planning system and the urbanisation processes. In a context of vast and diffusely urbanised areas, where urban transformation is made by the sum of small autonomous private interventions the main question is: how to articulate such individual operations in order to create a coherent and intelligible larger urban structure? The answer seems to point towards a planning essentially based on management (Bourdin, [2010] 2011), resting on a more continuous, procedural and reflexive practice (Ascher, [2001] 2010), able to involve all willing actors (Jessop, 1998; Forester, 2008). Such practices Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? will necessarily be the result of a bottom-up process, based on learning experience of local agents (Sanderson, 2009) and on a profound knowledge of the existing reality. More recent studies – namely in the field of urban morphology – seek such knowledge, by identifying and analysing the main elements that compose the complex structures of diffuse urbanisation (Boeri, Lanzani and Marini, 1993; Viganó 1999; De Rossi, 2009), and by understanding how they relate to each other in multiscale networks (Oswald and Baccini, 2003), and what are the logics and processes that shape each one of those elements (Mangin, 2004). Following such path, this paper looks at the loteamentos of Ave Valley Region. These are private urban developments regulated by a simple procedural regime, and one of the main elements of this region’s urbanisation. Taking the municipality of V.N. Famalicão as a case study, loteamentos are analysed both as a process and as an urban morphology in order to better understand their role in the definition of this urban structure. Central questions are: What is the result of the total of all individual building projects, which patterns and structure can be mapped? What are the planning instruments, procedures and actors behind this process? What is the spatial contribution of loteamentos to the overall public space structure? Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? 2. Urbanization in V.N.Famalicão Adding fragments During the last five decades, the Ave Valley Region has undergone an enormous urban growth, mainly shaped by the sum of small autonomous fragments, namely private urban development projects. Although this process followed an existing diffuse urban pattern 1 , it shows a trend break on the urbanization process, which is expressed by the transformation speed, the type of operations, the building typologies and the planning procedures. The creation of loteamentos in 1965 is a key factor in this shift. In the period 1970-2011, the population of V.N. Famalicão increased 49,2% and the total housing units rose 178,7% (Figure 2). This growth was caused by several reasons such as: internal migrations induced by new industrial jobs, improvements of living conditions and mutations on household types. Simultaneously, between 1976 and 2003, private house ownership was stimulated by a public program of subsidized credits and a series of fiscal benefits. The existing planning instruments and institutions were unprepared for such a sudden growth. In V.N. Famalicão, the existing plans were limited to the central town area and essentially linked to the design of specific public spaces and facilities, leaving more than 90% of the population outside its limits 2 . 1 The extensive diffuse urban settlement of this region has ancient origins. It has been referenced in 1762 by Castro, who described this whole region as a continuous city (I, 48). 2 The first municipal urban plan of V.N.Famalicão (1948) covered only the central town area. According to plan documents, it corresponded to c. 5.000 inhabitants. These were less than 9% of the 55.644 already existent in the municipality in 1940. Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? Figure 2. Evolution of the urbanisation in V.N. Famalicão Left column – grey: urbanisation; red: new loteamentos in the last period; black: loteamentos built in the previous periods. Right column – black: existing buildings and street pattern; red: new buildings and street pattern, in the last period Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? The first comprehensive plan covering the entire municipality’s territory – the PDM, Plano Director Municipal – was published in 1994, and it is still valid today 3 . This long or mid-term spatial plan established zoning (land use), generic rules (procedures, taxes, land use, typologies), new mobility lines and some special projects (as the town park). However, more than presenting a clear vision or strategy for the overall development of V.N. Famalicão, it appears mainly as a mechanism for regulating a bursting real estate market and for controlling land value. The plan enables large building possibilities in a vast area 4 , which was a common practice in Portugal. The logic was to provide excess of building area, to ensure low land values and, in this way, controlling housing prices, considering that housing production was completely dependent of the private market 5 . The plan does not go further in the creation of mechanisms to steer the urbanisation process, such as the definition of a yearly housing quote, target groups and their necessary housing demands, or a public housing policy. Furthermore, it does not include an implementation or execution programme. More detailed urban plans – such as PU, Plano de Urbanização and PP, Plano de Pormenor –, which, according to the Portuguese planning system, were expected to detail and shape the generic rules of the PDM (art. 87th, art. 90th, RJIGT), have shown to be the exception (Portas, Sá and Cardoso, 1998). It is important to underline that, due to limited financial and technical resources, the municipality has no leading role in the urbanisation production, at least as a developing agent. Even more, it has no instruments to directly control land value (Correia, [1993] 2002). In practice, this means that the municipality has a restricted capacity to impose specific land 3 Presently, the PDM revision is in process. According to the national law, this should be updated every ten years. 4 This included the already urbanised territories in 1994, plus an important share of contiguous areas for future urbanization. 5 Controlling housing prices was one of the main purposes of planning laws and practices of this period, due to the fast urban growth and housing shortage, especially considering the almost absence of public housing. Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? uses or urban design 6 . Therefore, its key role becomes essentially to regulate and control individual private urban interventions. In fact, the urban structure of this region is not the product of any overall design, but the consequence of a process of successive addition of autonomous private urban development projects. Even though these operations have been created through different procedures, the standard legal instrument is the loteamento. In V.N. Famalicão it is possible to recognize the major impact of this mechanism in the urbanization process (Figure 2 and 3). There, we can count a total of 1090 approved loteamentos 7 . Since the PDM was published, in 1994, while only one PP and one PU have been approved, a total of 488 permits for loteamentos have been issued. These correspond to more than half of all housing units licensed during the same period. 8 In this region, loteamentos are based on a small grain and historical irregular parcel structure. The overall image loteamentos have in common, is their significant autonomy or independence of developing logic (Figure 4), which is directly related to ownership and small grain of this urban territory (89,3% of the loteamentos are smaller than 2,0 ha). In general, the possibility to urbanise a certain area is always approached from the logic of one-entity-one-area. Though, in certain situations, the ability to develop larger areas through the collaboration of different landowners would probably increase spatial quality and economic value, this is not an established practise. By enabling building in such a vast area, the planning strategy made it impossible to create enough urban pressure to lead to bigger interventions. More than spatial reasons, the urbanisation is led by other factors such 6 This was particularly truth in a context where urban growth was an objective to cherish. Not only because it was understood as a device and a sign of local development, but also because it was an important source of income for the municipality. 7 Although the large majority of these loteamentos are held by private developers, they include 17 initiated by the municipality, 15 of which for public housing. 8 Between 1995 and 2011 there have been licensed 16813 dwellings in new buildings (data: Instituto Nacional de Estatística). The loteamentos licensed during the same period comprehended 8662 dwellings (data: Municipality of V.N. Famalicão), which corresponds to 51,5% of the total licensed dwellings. Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? as economy, employment, demographics, public policies (taxes, subsidies), and the trends and dynamics of housing market. Figure 3. All loteamentos of V.N. Famalicão, by date. Figure 4. Planning logics of loteamentos Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? 3. Planning instrument Loteamento: The creation of the legal instrument In legal terms, loteamento is an urban operation that implies the division of the land in plots to be subsequently built (art. 2nd i), RJUE). It was created in 1965 (Decreto-Lei nr 46673) as a reaction to the proliferation of private urban development projects held outside any planning instrument or legal framework, which was a reaction to the fast growth of that period. By then, existing regulations were only applied to the few areas covered by urban plans; as the possibility of relevant urban developing outside central town areas was generally not considered, although common practise. In order to control these kind of private developments, the government created the loteamento, as a new legal instrument. For the first time, it was recognized to private agents the ability to urbanize the territory, and, in this sense, private developers were considered as substitutes of public entities, in their duty of urban developing. Since 1965, the legal framework of loteamento has changed several times, pointing towards the creation of a simple and fast procedure. Such changes followed three main axis: 1. Simplifying the procedure – Initially, obtaining approval for new loteamentos outside planned areas was difficult, time-consuming and uncertain, as it was decided directly by the central government. Hence, the tendency for developers to use other legal or illegal mechanisms in order to obtain the same effect. Seeking to oppose such practices, the government tried to ease and clarify the approval procedure. Nevertheless, the main change came with the implementation of PDMs, with which approvals of loteamentos became dependent only from municipalities. Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? It is then possible to claim that, as João Ferrão (2011) argues, the main issue is not a legal one. It is mainly a question of culture. It is the way in which all involved actors understand and relate both to spatial planning and to the territory itself that determine the daily practices which shape the urban landscape. Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? 4. Impact of Loteamentos in V.N. Famalicão Figure 6. The sum of all loteamentos in relation to the urban areas of V.N. Famalicão Looking at loteamentos Acknowledging the impact of loteamentos in the urban landscape of V.N. Famalicão, it is clear they have contributed to the creation of a very dispersed and fragmented urban pattern (Figure 6). Analysing their spatial distribution there is no evident concentration related to any period or type, apart from a certain prevalence of collective housing typology in the central town area. Loteamentos are spread all over the municipality, following the existing diffuse pattern distributed along the valleys of the region and main road infrastructures, to which urbanisation is mainly linked. At a smaller scale, it is evident loteamentos have contributed to the creation of complex, discontinuous and fragmentary structures. Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? Dynamics As stated, urban growth of the Ave Valley Region directly follows market dynamics. Until the implementation of democracy in 1974, loteamentos had little presence in V.N. Famalicão. In 1974 there was a first production peak, corresponding to a total of 926 housing units 17 , followed by a profound depression in 1978 and by a second peak in 1981 (1027 housing units). From 1985 it is possible to identify a continuous and sustained increase until the year 2000 (1252 housing units), after which the number of processes clearly falls. From 2008, with the sub-prime crisis, the market has basically paralysed. During this period (Figures 7, 8, 9), different trends – related to typologies and procedures – can be identified. Key factors are the approval of the PDM and the introduction of professional developers. Before 1994, the most common projects were the ones initiated by individual landowners, who, most of the times, limited their interventions to plot division (with or without the creation of new public space and infrastructure) leaving building for future buyers. In such cases, single housing was the most common typology. After 1994, the share of row houses increased enormously, becoming the most common typology for loteamentos. From 1994 to 2007, row houses and collective housing clearly dominated the growth process, which had a relevant impact on the urban landscape of the region, until then mainly dominated by the small grain of detached and semidetached houses. Such trend is correlated with the evident preponderance of private professional developers during this period. The introduction of this kind of developers had an effect on the dominant typologies, as they were normally responsible not only for infrastructure and plot division, but also for the buildings. It had also an impact on the scale and network type of the operations. Also, more non-residential loteamentos were initiated in period, because 17 Number of housing units contained in the approved permits for loteamentos. Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? of the industrial zones established by the PDM. These loteamentos’ types show a completely different urban design and morphology, primarily because of the different building typology and heavy road network destined to trucks. In the last years, the involvement of professional developers has gradually decreased. Though private companies are still responsible for the major part of loteamentos, they are now a minority when considering the totality of permits for new housing units in the municipality – something that happens for the first time since 1998. Such mutation will probably have noticeable consequences on housing typology and on the processes of transformation of urban landscape. Figure 7. Licensed housing units – total and belonging to loteamentos Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? Figure 8. Housing typology in loteamentos (average housing units per year, for each period) Figure 9. Developer category in loteamentos (average housing units per year, for each period) Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? 5. Loteamentos: morphological typology Case-study selection For a more detailed morphological analysis of loteamentos, an East-West strip covering the whole length of the municipality is delineated to select a representative sample for residential loteamentos (209 loteamentos, ~19% of the total loteamentos) (Figures 10, 11, 12). It is a 1500 m wide strip along the axis of the regional road N206, covering different contexts: a more rural and dispersed area to the West, the central town area in the middle, and a more intense and diffuse settlement to the East. The presented results are based on this sample. Main focus is on the contribution each loteamento has to a larger structure. In this sense, two scales were essential to map: the loteamento unit and the impact to a bigger area (sample). For this analyses GIS data is used combined with map and aerial photograph information. The base source for this research is the GIS database of the municipality of V.N. Famalicão. This database is further developed and extended by the authors for this article. In the last year, several fieldwork visits were made. Relation of loteamentos to the overall structure Essential loteamento aspects are: ownership, own accessibility, series housing types, and one single planning process. Therefore, loteamentos tend to present certain independence in relation to their surroundings: an autonomous spatial entity. Each loteamento introduces its own urban type (Silva, 2005) without clear or significantly transforming, adding, improving or adapting the larger existing context. However, the sum of all creates small and larger disruptions in the existing spatial structure, due to the introduction of big building Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? volumes and new typologies, clearly identifiable building clusters, or larger street space standards (Figure 13). In order to better grasp in which way loteamentos participate on the construction of urban structure, the analysis focused on the public contribution given by each operation, namely looking at the proposed public space design. Figure 10. Sample of loteamentos 1 – general data Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? Figure 11. Sample of loteamentos 1 - programme and developer type Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? Figure 12. Sample of loteamentos 2 – ‘public contribution’ Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? Figure 13. Two examples of loteamentos - introducing new public space characteristics and building typology Public contribution In principle, each loteamento is a unique and autonomous ´urban product´. However, the ability to urbanise involves certain responsibilities towards the community and/or the direct surroundings. As mentioned before, developers have the obligation to execute all needed infrastructures networks and public space – namely public streets, a certain amount of public green space and areas destined for public facilities. After completion, these are transferred to public domain, shifting the maintenance task to the municipality. In this way, an important share of the public urban structure is created by the sum of private interventions. Nevertheless, these are mainly quantitative demands – often even with a paid-off possibility – which do not take in consideration local spatial characteristics. Despite existing regulations, it is noteworthy the lack of public green space (only 37% of loteamentos sample), specific pedestrian areas such as sidewalks or squares (only 36%), or the use of trees in public space (only 30%). This gives an indication of the relative minor public contribution of the sum of all loteamentos. Urbanization in the Ave Valley region: more than a sum of building projects? such as loteamentos, an incomprehensible mismatch between new small urban pieces and the existing spatial structure is produced. In order to develop more effective planning practices, it is essential not only to recognize the specific characteristics and logics of loteamentos, but also to understand the impact the sum-of-all has to urban landscape. Much more important than possible changes to the formal planning system is to create an informal planning process based on local contexts and on local actor experiences. Instruments such as informal guidelines and spatial strategies – clarifying an overall vision but open and attentive to specific characteristics of particular territories – can contribute to the urban planning process in order to guide and define clear requirements in more open and transparent dialogue phase. This is not to substitute the formal planning system itself, but to give more room for local-basedsolutions. Acknowledgment The authors thank the collaboration of the planning department of the municipal V.N. Famalicão, particularly Francisca Magalhães. This paper is part of two Ph.D. research projects, both are being financially supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia – under the QREN-POPH program: Daniel Casas Valle (grant SFRH/BD/86930/2012) and Nuno Travasso (grant SFRH/BD/70287/2010). Both Ph.D researches are integrated at the Centre for architectural and urban studies (CEAU), at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto (FAUP). 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