Law 388 of 1997 in Colombia: some points of tension in the process of its implementation

Abstract

The Colombian experience of issuing and implementing legislation for land use and soil is a good example on the type of discussions, tension and resistance at the juncture that are mobilized in Latin America in this crucial aspect of urban management. Several decades of efforts to have a constitutional and legal framework that has laid the groundwork for consistent intervention in the land market and has given municipal governments have tools for new sources of financing of urbanization from the mobilization capital gains and to support policies for social housing, environmental or mobility among others. The legislation has been clarified and developed by a wide and innovative jurisprudence, in particular produced by the Constitutional Court and since early 2000, when management plans began to be approved, going through the most difficult stage of implementation at the municipal level, where face problems ranging from the definition of powers to take political decisions in this area, a strong attachment patrimonial in connection with the land until the construction of public and private institutional capacity and adaptation to a sharp change in the rules of the game related to the allocation of the rules of use and build. Taking into account that the Law on Territorial Development arrived last year to its ten years of operation without major changes, the article examines both the contents and legal points of discussion and tension of this process focused on three aspects: 1) the relationship between levels of government or the distribution of powers, 2) the legal-urban regime of property from the revision of the meaning and scope of the social function of property and 3) the relationship between land and housing policies of social interest. The article provides elements for discussion on best position to intervene in the land market in Latin American cities due to their particular conditions in terms of exclusion, inequality and inequity.