Inclusive housing production through Urban Renewal processes: the case of the Partial Plan of the Phoenician Triangle in Bogotá – Colombia

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to expose an example about the possibilities of land readjustment as a “third way” for land management and the availability of social housing in urban renewal projects. The example is a project situated in Bogotá’s downtown, promoted by the Universidad de los Andes. The project is in its first step of execution, nevertheless, is a referent for the city because its opening and participative process for formulation and the innovations in its proposal of actors’ association. The project includes the original owners as main participants and a diverse component of all kind of housing, like substitution housing, social housing and free housing for the developers and new residents.

The scale of the project (9 blocks and 10 hectares of land) allows to comprehend the potentialities and the complexities or urban renewal and land readjustment as ways to promote the diverse and balanced supply of land, by both in relation with the composition of land uses and the socioeconomic composition and in the way to integrate and coordinate a wide range of public and private actors.

In order to expand the relevant issues of this case, this paper is going to do, in first place, a brief contextualization of land readjustment, defining it as a tool and showing its importance in the Colombian urban legislation. Also, it will talk about the traditional ways of land management, the expropriation and the free market, demonstrating how the land readjustment is that “third way” for the management.

Subsequently, it will show the Partial Plan process, pointing out the stages of formulation, the general, socioeconomic and housing characterization of the project area. The analysis of the way in which it be promoted the participation and deliberation between a wide range of actors (owners, public authorities, traders, communitarian organizations) in the formulation and execution stages of the project shows the virtues and the complexities of new ways of urban governance where the interaction and the coordination between different actors are a mode to try to achieve more equitable and inclusive results in the urban renewal process in the central places of the city.

On the other hand, the paper will show the general urbanistic proposal of the plan as long as the objectives and the scope of the housing supply, the owners and residents participation schemes and mechanisms, the ways of management, and financing for construction and the current progress of the project. And finally, the lessons are presented as a conclusion on two topics; access to housing and governance or citizen participation.

The data used is that provided by both the developers and the participants in the project, through a methodology that allows collecting the experience of the project to the extent that the author has closely followed the main milestones since the stage of formulation. Also, secondary sources such as reports, concertation minutes and the communications that the actors make through different printed and electronic media are taken into account.

The case of the Partial Phoenician Plan manages to show an urban renewal project framed in the inclusion and citizen participation, fundamental aspects for the success of the land readjustment. Furthermore, it demonstrates the need to build trust among the participants, establish clear rules of the game, and even take into account the actors who do not sit down to negotiate. In short, the good results that can be achieved when active citizenship is part of the formulation and execution of projects that seek a better city.