The City Council of São Paulo approved on Monday (26) the substitute text of the revision of the Strategic Master Plan (PDE) of the capital. There were 44 votes in favor and 11 against after a session that lasted more than seven hours. The text now goes to sanction or veto by Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB).
One of the main points of the PDE is population density, that is, the greatest concentration of people in a smaller space of land. The project was born with the idea of making the city denser closer to transport hubs.
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Among the changes are the expansion of the transformation axes of the urban structure, which are the areas around metro and train stations and bus lanes. Currently, in a range of up to 600 meters from stations and 300 meters from bus corridors, it is allowed to build up to four times the size of the land, allowing for taller buildings.
According to the approved proposal, an area of up to 700 meters on the blocks reached by this radius in relation to subway stations and up to 400 meters in relation to bus lanes are considered axes. In practice, changing this term means that even blocks that are partially within this radius of 700 or 400 meters may have more flexible construction rules, allowing taller buildings to be erected in inner areas of the neighborhoods.
The approved project also foresees the use of resources from the Urban Development Fund (Fundurb) for resurfacing. Fundurb is a fund created in 2014 that is made up of the money from the onerous grant — a fee that construction companies pay to the city hall in exchange for the right to erect their buildings — and that is used for the construction of social housing, investments in public transport public spaces and bicycle paths and implementation of urban facilities and green areas. Now, the project foresees that the money can also be used for “paving and resurfacing”.
The approved project makes it more expensive to build apartments of up to 30 square meters. The law currently in force provides that the grant can be cheaper for apartments of up to 50 square meters. With the review, the proposal is to make it more expensive to build apartments of up to 30 square meters. From 31 square meters, the rate is lower up to the limit of 70 square meters. As the idea is not to encourage very large apartments, units with an area from 71 square meters pay a higher rate.
However, this increase in grants for small apartments only applies to residential units. It is common for many of the so-called “studios”, from 20 to 30 square meters, to be licensed as non-residential units, in the “lodging or housing services” category. This type of housing is generally intended for temporary rentals on platforms such as Airbnb and Booking, and not for permanent housing.
Social role
The text still gives benefits to religious temples and political parties. This is because the Master Plan currently in effect establishes a mechanism called the social function of property, according to which the government must notify unused or underutilized properties so that they can be built or occupied. A piece of land that functions only as a parking lot, for example, and has no building on top, is considered unbuilt and underused.
The municipality can notify the owners of these properties and determine that they fulfill a social function. Each year that the property remains unused, the IPTU increases progressively, for up to five years. After that period, the government can take the property for itself. What the new text does is determine that this rule does not apply in cases of headquarters of political parties, temples of all cults and places of diplomatic representation.
Another approved article provides that places of worship do not need to allocate part of their land to social housing when they are located in zones of special interest, the so-called ZEIS. By law, whenever properties with land exceeding one thousand square meters in these areas undergo renovation with a change of use, they must allocate a minimum percentage of the constructed area to popular housing. Now, places of worship are exempt from this rule.
Parks
The revision also provides for the creation of 18 new parks in the city, including Parque Princesa Isabel, in the Center, and Parque Itapaiuna, in the South Zone. The project also creates the Territory of Cultural and Landscape Interest (TICP) Bixiga, which limits verticalization in the neighborhood even in the streets that are close to bus lanes and subway and train stations. The area will be protected until the city hall makes a specific plan for the territory, which according to the text “should include articulation with housing policies that guarantee the maintenance of the resident population and the racial profile of this perimeter”.
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