Vol 3_No. 6 April 2010
CENTRE ON HOUSING RIGHTS AND EVICTIONS
Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America 2010 | #06
Special issue on Democratic Management of cities
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Editorial
Brazil
Argentina
Mexico
Credits / Supporting Organizations
For a democratic management of cities
The right to adequate housing and social participation
Environmental City Plan of the City of Buenos Aires
By Regina Fรกtima C. F. Ferreira
By Marcelo Corti
The Charter of Mexico City for the Right to the City Achievements and perspectives of social participation By Enrique Ortiz
Editorial For a democratic management of cities
Today, democracy is a key element in any process of integration among countries, either in their domestic or foreign relations. The implementation of democracy is considered a basic requirement for countries to be world players as well as for the defense of civil and political freedom. A policy that enables true democratic representation compatible with the human rights obligations for which we advocate has to have the actual and effective participation of all levels of society where political decision-making processes take place in any given country. The democratic systems in different countries should aim to achieve mechanisms for the representation and institutionalized political participation of all. However,market impositions and rules, together with increased deregulation by the State (which lacks power to intervene and decide) render effective participation and political representation of the people unfeasible in many countries of the region. Indeed, the input of the people is often not taken into consideration at all.
What happens, then, if we talk about democratic management of cities? There is actually a real struggle and need for social pressure to make sure that civil society has a voice and effective participation and decisionmaking power in the processes of legal construction, city planning, public policies and in the management of cities itself. This Bulletin deals precisely with this issue. Namely, it examines citizen participation experiences in cityrelated decision-making processes. In this regard, Regina Ferreira approaches the process of building citizen participation in Brazil from the networking of movements and organizations to influence the new Constitution drafting process in 1987, which ultimately resulted in the promulgation of the Brazilian Federal Constitution in 1988. Ms. Ferreira makes a significant reflection on the praised participatory processes in Brazil and on the difficulties that prevent these processes from really meeting the needs of low income communities in Brazil. Marcelo Corti will approach the challenges to guarantee citizen
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participation in the city of Buenos Aires, discussing city planning from a review of the local legal framework that guarantees a certain degree of participation, which nevertheless is insufficient and requires some improvement to really come to fruition. Additionally, Enrique Ortiz presents a report on the struggle and social mobilization in Mexico for the implementation of the right to the city, which is included in the “Carta de la Ciudad de México por el Derecho a la Ciudad” (Charter of Mexico City for the Right to the City). Mr. Ortiz also shows the importance of guaranteeing social participation as a strategic component of the demand made to the Federal Administration. It is clear that the right to the city will not materialize by itself. Broader citizen participation processes must be ensured so that all citizens can play a major role in the decisions made at the city level in a truly participatory democratic fashion.
The right to adequate housing and social participation in Brazil By Regina Fátima C. F. Ferreira *
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Page 03 Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right The right to adequate housing to the City in Latin America and social participation in Brazil Vol. 3 – No. VI – April 2010
Housing as a right, was incorporated into the Brazilian Constitution in 2000. The State of Brazil, however, was already signing treaties and international conventions recognizing the right to housing much earlier than this. However, today, this right is still not a reality for the majority of the population in Brazil. The portrait of a country whose history of colonialism and redemocratisation is marked by the appropriation of most of the wealth by a few, which results in a violation of human rights to the vast majority of the population, including in particular those excluded and segregated socially and territorially.
At the same time, we have a number of vacant dwellings that equate to 75% of the housing deficit, revealing that the requirements of the Statue of the City – for property to fulfill its social function – are still distant goals rather than realities being applied by the municipal government as a course of city management.
In Brazil, the deficit in housing units is around 7 million homes, affecting 15% of the 53 million total existing households in the country. More than 22% (11.3 million) of the total homes are affected by a lack of some type of infrastructure. For instance, nearly half the population (83 million) does not have access to sewage systems and 45 million people do not have access to a water supply. When speaking of urban movement and mobility, 37 million people cannot access public transportation due to high fares.
Participation in the management of cities: the emergence of the National Forum for Urban Reform, Councel of Cities and System, and National Fund for Habitation and Social Interest
The history of Brazil is comprised of struggle and social organization. And it is precisely regarding the struggle for the right to adequate housing and social participation in the management of cities that we will address the following paragraphs.
On the path to redemocratisation in the 1980’s, the movement for urban reform reasserted itself in the country. Over time, the movement achieved the application of a small success regarding urban policy that incorporated the social function of property and of the city as fundamental principles of this policy.1
The civil society organizations that built the proposal of Popular Amendment of Urban Reform,– popular movements, unions, nongovernment organizations, research institutions, among others – in 1987 gave continuity to the struggle, constituting the National Forum of Urban Reform. Today a network of more than twenty years of existence and presence exists in all of the Brazilian states. During this period, there were several noteworthy achievements of the movement for urban reform. These included the passing of the Statute of the City in 2001; the creation of the Ministry of Cities in 2003 (after the election of Lula in 2002); a discussion of urban policies via city conferences; the creation of the Counsel of Cities as a result of the first National Conference also in 2003; and the passing of the first law of the popular initiative in 2005, Law 11.124, that created the System and the National Fund of Social Interest. The creation of the Ministry of Cities and the Counsel of Cities began the creation of a regulatory framework that was representative and innovative
when we consider the interaction between the government and society. It is important to note that the Counsels were formed in Brazil via an institutional format that materializes the articles of the Federal Constitution, where participation and social control is established. City Counsels – national, state, and municipal – have been implementing initiatives from every level of government, normally under social pressure to institute those initiatives. In 2007, out of the total 26 Brazilian states and the Federal District, only six had functioning City Counsels. In 2008, after the realization of the third City Conference, this number has grown to 10 states. Four additional states are in the process of creating a functioning City Counsel as well. Challenges to effective democratic participation of cities City Councils can be considered innovative in building institutional arrangements that make viable continuous dialogue among the various segments of organized civil society and the government. This dialogue occurs in a public sphere
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where the management of conflicts and the construction of a consensus are conditions for the advancement, formulation, and implementation of actions, policies, and programs. However, they are conservative when they implement demagogic practices characterized by care and treatment – by executive power – of individual or corporate demands. Councils have carried among the innovation and reproduction of the old counterproductive practices . As a process of construction and permanent learning, there are many things to invest, both in the formation of social subjects, as well as the monitoring and social control regarding policies. Beyond this, it is fundamental that advances in regulation through the law of these spheres, guarantee its deliberate character and composition that has ample participation of diverse social segments. In many municipal states – including at the national level – the City Councils still are regulated through ordinance which weakens their existence and function insofar as state policy is concerned. The passing of the law that created
the System and the National Fund for Habitation and Social Interest marks a historical struggle of movements for housing that were important steps towards the construction of a policy of decentralized and articulated habitation, in the measure that linked the transfer of funds of the System and the National Fund for Habitation and Social Interest to the deployment of similar systems in the municipal states. At the moment, despite the formal support of all the states and more than 90% of the municipalities of the System of National Habitation of Social Interest (data from 2008), in practice the states and municipalities are still in the process of constructing a System of Habitation and Social Interest. Only a few states and municipalities have already formulated their policies and plans for habitation and social interest, raised Funding with their own resources (the state or municipality) and have a functioning Fund Management Council. This way, despite the advances in the last years in the opening of space for social participation, there are many challenges to guarantee in reality the
right to housing and city in Brazil. The success of the construction of a national system for participation around urban policy, linked to both City Councils and the System of National Habitation of Social Interest, will depend not only on a new conception of urban policy that integrates sectorial policies, programs, and three levels of government (federal, state, and municipal) and the various councils, but principally, on the role of the social subjects and their capacity to produce conflict and provoke change.
1. The Brazilian Constitution stipulates that property should meet its social function. Thus, a property right can not be exercised against the social or collective interest, which should specify the Master Plan, as defined by the Constitution: "The property is fulfilling its social function when it satisfies the fundamental requirements for the city expressed in the master plan "(see point 1988, art. 182, paragraph 2). * Regina F tima C. F. Ferreira. Architect and urban planner, master of urban and regional planning and educating the NGO FASE Solidarity and Education. It acts as Advisor of the National Right to the City. Integrates the Center of the Metropolis of the Institute for Research and Urban and Regional Planning at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The Executive Secretary of the National Forum of Urban Reform and adviser to ConCidades,(Counsel of Cities) representing FASE / segment of NGOs.
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Argentina Environmental City Plan for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires
Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 3 – No. VI – April 2010
By Marcelo Corti *
Although there are democratic participation mechanisms and regulations in place in the current Environmental City Plan of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, they have few actual powers and management standards that enable a concrete realization of the right to the city for all Buenos Aires citizens. Environmental City Plan (PUA): ambiguity in the regulation of the right to the city and democratic management The Environmental City Plan (PUA) of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Act 2930,1 was ratified in 2008 after a decade of controversies over its development. The previous city plan was implemented in 1962; its most influential instrument being the City Planning Code of 19772 (which is still in force, but with many amendments). The Constitution of the City3 established in 1996 the development of the PUA, a “framework law that city planning standards and public works must comply with.” However, the first two PUA projects, which were submitted to the City Legislative in 2000 and 2004, lost their project status because they were challenged by civil society organizations that argued that the mandatory participatory mechanisms had not been complied with during the drafting process.
The third project of the Environmental City Plan was reduced in the extent and coverage of its programs and projects when compared to the previous bills with the purpose of trying to achieve the necessary consensus for its approval. After this plan was finally approved, it resulted in a weakened document limited to a few lines of territorial, sectorial and instrumental character and this is precisely where its strengths and weaknesses lie. In Article 3, the PUA proposes “as a State policy to provide support to the City planning and management process, from the materialization of social consensuses on the most significant issues of the city that people aspire to and the transformation of the real city so as to respond to the right to the city for all its inhabitants (emphasis by the author). The legal recognition of the right to the city is assumed here, which nevertheless is not clearly defined in the Law.4 Such lack of definition results in serious ambiguity concerning the actual contents of this right. The Constitution of the City of Buenos Aires does not make any mention to the right to the city, although it does recognize, in its Article 26, the “right to enjoy a healthy environment” and, in its Article 30, the “right to adequate housing and to an adequate habitat”.
Concerning habitat and housing, Article 8 of the PUA refers to “both the improvement of the habitat of lower income social classes and to the environmental quality conditions the habitat should preserve as a whole”. Section “d” specifically proposes “the promotion of housing purchase policies targeted at the population living under a housing deficit situation,” by solving the housing issue of those who have difficulty to access the housing market; the improvement of critical housing conditions and the use of government properties. However, the effective exercise of this right to housing is the most serious deficit of democracy and autonomy in the City of Buenos Aires. According to different estimates, the housing deficit could affect at least 200,000 persons (some place the number as high as twice as much). It is safe to say that approximately 8 per cent of the city’s inhabitants live in slums, squatted houses, miserable hotels or even on the street. According to a recent report,5 the City Housing Institute continues to be an organization that is removed from the city planning processes, has serious organizational and management deficiencies, having its role limited to the (increasingly restricted) production of houses without a vision for the city. A recent provision
has even taken away from it the competence of urbanizing the slums on the Southern part of the city, a task that now is in the hands of the state organization Corporación Buenos Aires Sur (Southern Buenos Aires Corporation). Meanwhile, the implementation of Act 1.408 on Housing Emergency is still pending. According to this act, a Housing Emergency Fund should be established “to be used exclusively with existing programs or those established by a specific law which are designed to provided transient or permanent housing solutions” for those affected by the housing deficit. The apparent inability of the richest district of Argentina to solve its housing deficit should not be attributed solely to the evident inefficiency of successive local governments. The wealth of the City itself attracts people looking for job opportunities and services, but who struggle to have access to adequate housing in the formal market. Therefore, the deficit tends to selfreplicate and it becomes impossible to solve if something it not done simultaneously in other districts, particularly in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area.6
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Actual democratic participation: a real challenge Regarding civil participation in the development and implementation of city plans, PUA devotes Chapter 4 to the Participation Instruments, indicating on its Article 25 that “the several objectives and instruments of PUA should be decided and implemented at participatory events that ensure consensus and inclusion of the expectations of city inhabitants, through methodical and orderly intervention by the largest number and diversity of social players: people who are politically and technically in charge of the city management, social and community organizations and individual citizens”. Among the existing participation mechanisms the Plan proposes to “adjust” and improve are the following: the Advisory Committee of the Council for Environmental City Planning; the Permanent Participatory Forum of this Council (in both cases these are internal organizations of the Council); and Public Hearings.7 Additionally, a proposal is made to implement “specific and consistent public and massive dissemination programs.” Seemingly aware of the limitation of these mechanisms in a context of growing disagreement over the city issues, Buenos Aires legislators ordered the
“establishment of new provisions to promote and facilitate participatory activities.” However, their scope and characteristics are not precise. Therefore, progress has to be made in this regard considering the growing demand that exists today for citizen participation in city planning and management in Buenos Aires and many other cities. Without going into details about the instruments and rules that can be implemented to achieve this goal, it seems that the most appropriate course of action would be to privilege those that enable technicians and politicians to listen to citizens’ opinions before implementing plans and projects and do so as close to their homes as possible (in order to do that, the implementation of the Law of Communes, an ambitious decentralization program established through a constitutional mandate might help). First, however, the already mentioned PUA ambiguities and lack of definition should be solved through successive reviews and updates as established by Act 71. This mandate caused some professionals, including the author, to support, even with the aforementioned inconsistencies, the sanction of PUA. In our view, we prioritize the need to break with an unproductive discussion and have an instrument amenable to improvements from these urgently needed review and update.8
1. The laws of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires quoted on this note can be consulted at the item “Normativa” on the menu of the Buenos Aires City Administration website (www.buenosaires.gov.ar/). 2. It is worth clarifying that while the Buenos Aires Master Plan was drafted by the Office of the Regulating Plan under the management of Eduardo Sarrailh and Odilia Suárez during the democratic government, the City Plan Code was sanctioned by the de facto mayor during the last military dictatorship in Argentina. 3. This local Constitution is drafted from the reform of the National Constitution in 1994 which grants autonomy to the City of Buenos Aires allowing the citizens of the Argentinean capital city to democratically elect their Head of Government. In the past and as a result of the imposition made by the other Argentinean provinces on the Province of Buenos Aires in 1880 (through which the city is federalized and called Capital of the Nation), the Buenos Aires Mayor was appointed by the President of the Nation. 4. Although Article 5 postulates the following features of the desired City: Integrated, Pluralist, Multicentric, Healthy and Diverse. 5. O IVC frente às vilas da Cidade: pouco direito e muita discricionalidade, a joint publication by COHRE and the Associação Civil pela Igualdade e pela Justiça (Civil Organization for Equality and Justice) – ACIJ, 2008. 6. The Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area comprehends 25 municipalities of the Province of Buenos Aires (a separate jurisdiction from the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires since the latter was declared the Capital City of the Republic of Argentina in 1880), with a total surface of 3,600 km2 and a population of
Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 3 – No. VI – April 2010
8,684,437 inhabitants in addition to 200 km2 and 2,776,138 inhabitants of the City (National Population and Housing Census 2001). 7. Described in Act 6 of the City as “a venue for participation in the administrative or legislative decision-making process where the authority in charge provides an institutional framework for all those who may feel affected or who have a particular interest to express their opinion. The purpose of this venue is to enable the authority in charge of making the decision to have access to different opinions on the subject at the same time and at equal terms through the direct contact with the stakeholders.” 8. For the subjects mentioned on this note, please look also at the Terquedades section of the digital magazine Café de las Ciudades (www.cafedelasciudades.com.ar). * Marcelo Corti is an architect with a degree from the University of Buenos Aires and a city planner with graduate degrees from UBA and the University of Barcelona. Mr. Corti has carried out projects and architecture works and city planning and territorial studies in Buenos Aires and several Argentinean provinces. He was a collaborator with the Architecture section of the Clarín daily newspaper. Mr. Corti is the editor of the digital magazine Café de las Ciudades. He is a professor at the School of Architecture, Design and City Planning at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and at the Architecture and Theater Arts Program at the Universidad del Salvador (Buenos Aires). Mr. Corti has been a member of the technical teams of the Buenos Aires City Planning Department since 2004.
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The charter of Mexico city for the right to the city. Achievements and perspectives of social participation.
Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 3 – No. VI – April 2010
By Enrique Ortiz *
The Draft of the Charter of Mexico City for the Right to the City was delivered to the Head of Government of the Mexican Federal District on 28 September 2009. This draft is the result of a comprehensive participatory effort promoted by several organizations of the People s City Movement taking as a reference the international process of the World Charter for the Right to the City. Background Negotiations related to the right to the city began with the Government of the Mexican Federal District in 2007. These negotiations were intensified when this initiative was opened to public debate at the multicenter World
Social Forum held in Mexico City in late January 2008. In April of that same year, a Promoting Committee was established made up of city-citizen organizations, representatives of the local Government, the Habitat International Coalition (HIC) in Latin America, the Human Rights Commission of the Mexican Federal District and the Space of Coordination of Civil Organizations on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Thus started an intense process of consultation, debate, socialization and dissemination that consisted of three public meetings, a deliberative forum, sessions with multiple social players, a children painting contest and over 30 Committee meetings dedicated to the coordination,
organization, follow-up and assessment of the process and to the systematization, discussion, drafting and review of the Charter contents. Social participation, a strategic component of the Charter The various experiences and discussions by citizen and civil society organizations and public agencies working in the field of human rights, in addition to the political will of the current Government of the Mexican Federal District, resulted in a document with a deep social content that assigns a key role to participation in the management of the city and its rural surroundings. The draft of the Charter aims at tackling
the causes of social exclusion in all its forms and is proposed as a response and counter-response to the city as a commodity and as an expression of the collective social interest. The Charter is essentially structured based on a matrix that relates the key elements of the city to which we aspire to achieve the six strategic components of the Right to the City we have been working on in Latin America. It is a complex approach that avoids limiting the contents of the Charter to the narrow field of administrative sectors, disciplines and specialties, expressing the interdependence of human rights, forcing deeper links, networking and processes.
Page 8 The charter of Mexico city for the right to the city
Starting from the assumption that there is no democracy without citizens and no citizens without the full exercise of their rights, the outline for the implementation of the Charter is contained in two guiding components: > Recognized and emerging human rights and the compliance with the obligations deriving from them; and > The democratization of all spaces and processes designed to realize the collective right to the city. These approaches assign a key role to active conscious and responsible participation of people, both in the construction of a city of rights and in a management that enables the concrete achievement of this goal. Both dimensions imply the key responsibility of the State and the co-responsible action of citizens and, more broadly, of all those who live and move within it. This proposal opens new challenges to the public administration regarding the need to establish spaces and create operating instruments and mechanisms to include organized social participation –up to the highest level– in the management of the city. These instruments and mechanisms are aimed at establishing new forms of coordination among different sectors and social players, which mandate the recognition of the
determining role communities and social and civil organizations may play in organizing the public programs within their territories. All this requires going beyond today’s participatory schemes which are limited to using “volunteer” labor and having consultations to advance towards higher levels of influence. To date, such consultation have been limited to negotiation tables, deliberative councils and intervention both at the preparation of public policies, instruments, plans, programs, budgets and projects, as well as their implementation, follow-up and assessment. In this regard, the Charter opens up new perspectives and requires participatory action of the social players in the promotion, defense and realization of human rights; the construction of an inclusive urban society taking into account conditions of equality and social justice; the improvement of the quality of life and housing conditions; the strengthening of popular economy and the construction of a socially and economically feasible and supportive city; the responsible management of environmental, energy and property resources; improvement of coexistence and public spaces in a city that sees itself as pluralist and culturally diverse.
Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 3 – No. VI – April 2010
Page 9 The charter of Mexico city for the right to the city
The immediate action The Charter is regarded as a roadmap that requires the prioritization of actions to consistently advance its implementation. The first step is to get the signature and commitments contained in it by the various players involved. This will enable the move towards the legal recognition of the Right to the City at the Mexican Federal District Statute and to start developing or changing
the instruments that enable gradual progress in its implementation. Many of the contributions gathered in the Charter have already been included in public programs, but their interactions must be considered in order to implement cross-sectorial actions and programs that provide more room for effective coordination and participation of the territory-based communities and improve the resources and capabilities of government agencies.
A key task will be to make sure that initiatives related to regulations and new public instruments and programs are in line with the objectives, strategic principles and guidelines of the Charter as well as to develop actions that put them into practice. This is the case with the broad community-based program for production and social management of the habitat that 22 social organizations and other players have developed and negotiated simultaneously with the drafting and promotion of the Charter.
Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 3 – No. VI – April 2010
* Enrique Ortiz, Project Coordinator for the Habitat International Coalition/Regional Office for Latin America (HIC-LA)
CENTRE ON HOUSING RIGHTS AND EVICTIONS
COHRE – the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions – is an independent, international non-governmental organisation. COHRE’s mission is to promote and protect the right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere. Founded in 1994, COHRE applies the international human rights framework to promote and protect housing rights at the local level, particularly with respect to marginalized or vulnerable communities. COHRE has consultative status with the United Nations (UN), the Organisation of American States (OAS), and the Council of Europe.
COHRE also holds observer status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
remedying housing rights violations including housing and property restitution for displaced persons.
promotion of campaigns against the practice of forced evictions.
COHRE is organised by regional programmes: Africa Programme (COHRE-CA), the Asia and the Pacific Programme (COHRE-CAPP), and the COHRE Americas Programme (COHRECAP). Each programme, carries out the following activities: promoting and working to enforce, including through legal advocacy, the right to the city, the right to water and sanitation, w o m e n ’s h o u s i n g r i g h t s , t h e prevention of forced evictions, and
Since 2002, the COHRE Americas Programme has been working in defense of the right to adequate housing in the region through capacity building programmes, legal assistance and promoting the right to land of minority groups and low income communities in informal settlements. CAP also carries out activities at the national and international level, including fact-finding missions, litigation, monitoring and the
The COHRE team – COHRE Americas Programme – CAP Carolina Brunstein, Fernanda Levenzon, Daniel Manrique, Karla Moroso, Cristiano Muller, Celina Panozzolo, Victoria Ricciardi.
Graphic design GLOT (www.glot.com.uy)
page 9 / Marching for housing rights / Council of Morelos / / HIC-AL
Photographs Cover / National Meeting of Urban Land in Venezuela / Observatori DESC page 2 / Marching for housing rights at the 2009 World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil / COHRE page 7 / Presentation of the Charter of México City / HIC - LA page 8 / Logo Right to the City Campaign, Tania Ramirez, HIC-AL
This Bulletin is produced and published by:
The COHRE Americas Programme organises these and other activities in certain focus countries where it works jointly with local partners. The countries where these activities are being conducted currently are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras. Also, the programme has a wide regional project, involving the entire region.
This publication is supported by
Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 3 – No. VI – April 2010 Editor Sebastián Tedeschi (Coordinator of COHRE Americas Programme)
Translation into English Marcos Guirado
Edition Assistant Soledad Domínguez
English editing Bret Thiele
COHRE –Programa para las Américas– CAP Rua Jerónimo Coelho, 102/31 Porto Alegre, RS - Brasil tel: + 55 51 3212-1904 email: cohreamericas@cohre.org