Rain roads, urban channels: new lines of land use planning. The master plan for the urban open space in Sabadell. The Green Infrastructure criteria

Abstract

In order to face the growing artificialization of the environment, the management and protection of urban and peri-urban open spaces is necessary. These spaces must be constituted as effective environmental elements, to increase urban resilience. The renewal of planning databases, including the creation of new thematic bases to analyze public space, together with the critical analysis of current planning figures, has revealed that instrumental planning has blurred the main objectives of the general plan of ordination of 93.

The objective is to establish the criteria that must be impregnated in new urban planning and project solutions, based on the problems detected in the diagnosis and indicator development phase.

The methodology is based on the existence of a double complexity in the project of open spaces: the logic of citizen routes or "urban channels", and the logic of environmental value embodied in the water cycle or "rain roads".

"Urban channels." The setting of guidelines has been made based on the following criteria:

• The structure of the civic axes must gradually facilitate the creation of a continuous network of spaces that structure the different neighborhoods of the city. These axes have been blurred as planning has become more short-term and instrumental

• The maturity of the configuration of the urban continuum limits the creation of new parks: the expansion of free spaces must go hand in hand with the reconfiguration of sections of large streets, avenues and pedestrian spaces.

• Discontinuities detected in the main pedestrian networks are not acceptable. Private transport infrastructures have been the only ones to provide inter-municipal communications.

• The new organization of the city can no longer be dominated by growth dynamics or by the construction of new infrastructures.

• It is necessary to consider the continuity of urban open spaces with the network of peri-urban and undeveloped spaces, so that they do not present discontinuities.

"Rain roads." It is necessary to introduce elements of urban resilience in the realization of these opportunities. We must rearm urban projects with ecosystem content:

• The water cycle, in its three moments (emission / irrigation, transport / geometry and modeling, reception / infiltration) is the element that embodies this change. This water cycle also shapes new types of green spaces.

The data used have been: Urban planning maps, digital topographies, activity mapping, areas of possible transformation, open spaces, mobility studies. Analysis of rainfall, soil. Analysis of biodiversity and vegetation. Own municipal experience.

The free spaces are ordered with 2 planning instruments: The Master Plan of the Urban Open Space (in process) and the Master Plan of Urban Green (in writing)

The management of urban open space consists of:

• Proposal for the open space network: Definition of the network of free spaces and main civic axes - pedestrian network + Identification of the main connectivities of urban and peri-urban open space, which has led to a review of non-developable land planning

• Identification of the main city projects to complete the planned model.

• Definition of pending transformation and management areas.

• Global analysis of compatibility with other networks: cyclist, public transport, basic road ...

• Rebalancing by expanding the naturalized and pedestrian space with guidelines for Urban Planning Area projects.

On the other hand, we are currently developing the Urban Green Master Plan, to describe the criteria of green infrastructure that green spaces must satisfy, relevant from an environmental point of view.

The critical analysis of territorial and urban planning, as well as the proposal, hint:

• The lack of coordination in the planning process for new growths and the provision of infrastructure in the context of Vallès.

• The loss of validity of the city model proposed by the General Plan in some aspects.

• The great qualitative and quantitative potential of the functional rebalancing of the network of civic axes in empowerment and connection of open spaces and in the environmental improvement of cities.