Participatory and inclusive land readjustment in Medellin, Colombia

Robert Lewis-Lettington

Urban Legislation Unit, UN-Habitat

Medellin, Colombia. 2014.

The challenges faced - general

• Part land invasion, part regularized land• History of failed intervention• Vulnerable community (strata 1 and 2)• Isolated neighbourhood in middle class

area• Poor connectivity• Poor services• Environmental risk on riparian land

The challenges faced - specific

• Problematic plot pattern• Inadequate access and service provision• Need for integration into city fabric• Need to build social capital• Need for improved public-private

balance in urban renewal• Need for options to offset capital

investments

Why land readjustment?

• Ability to increase the effective supply of serviced land

• Reshape the neighbourhood• Maintain population with improved social

capital and governance• Reasonable political and legal framework• Inappropriateness of expropriation • Unsustainability of expropriation

Principles 1• To consolidate the city’s occupation model and its urban

conformation, that promotes an equitable and inclusive city, compact and connected, economically productive and environmentally sustainable, serviced by adequate public spaces and infrastructure.

• To implement a model that engages and provides meaningful participation to all key stakeholders, especially the poor and most vulnerable.

• Minimum of 75% consent, including the option of voluntary buyout

• To promote development and redevelopment approaches that create fair and equitable benefits for all key stakeholder groups

Principles 2

• To contribute to a city shape and urban form that are equitable and inclusive, compact and connected, economically productive and environmentally sustainable and that are serviced by adequate public spaces and infrastructure.

• To retain 75% or more of the resident population• To strengthen administrative and legislative structures to

institutionalise the principles as the basis of a long term approach .

• To strengthen the processes of monitoring and evaluating PILaR related activities to ensure continuous improvement and long term change.

• To be guided by the principles of good governance (equity, rule of law, transparency, accountability, respect for human dignity).

Core areas of activity

• Background studies• How to ‘announce’ the project• Enumeration• Legal instruments• Communication and engagement• Negotiated planning• Financial model• Execution

Background studies

• You can’t understand enough• Previous extension and redevelopment

models• Financial context of city and country• Socio-economic survey of the area• Basic hydrological and other physical

information • Basic tenure and topography

How to ‘announce’ the project

• Setting the preliminary foundations is of major concern

• Tensions:–Don’t raise expectations but need to engage

as early as possible–How much do you need to know and define

before engaging?–Announcement as ‘opening up a dialogue’– Easier in Candelaria as responding to a

community request

Enumeration and characterisation

• The ‘community’ is an elusive concept as all consist of multiple communities

• Physical variations within polygon• Means of engagement in itself, as well as

mapping other engagement strategies• Intra- and inter-household relations and tenure• Social capital• Economic interests• Fundamental risk of internal elite capture

(quite apart from external)

Enumeration as driver

• Feeds all other aspects of the project– Basis for assessing requirements of urban

design–Determines the nature of legal instrument–Defines the parameters of the financial

model (capital, maintenance and sources)

Legal instruments

• National framework– Establishes land readjustment as a tool– Provides a flexible framework– Depends upon local frameworks and

interpretations• Local framework– Highly fluid– Poor record of implementation– Contested– But still need the key function of law – stability

and predictability in managing relationships

Legal instruments: trust as vehicle

• Established practice of using fiduciary trusts– Almost entirely focused on private sector model– Only considers property and capital interests

• Alternative approaches to trusts– Shares derived from alternative interests– Value of shares that can be cashed in for alternative

interests

Communication and engagement

• Communication– Internal– Local– External

• Engagement– Consistent –Don’t overwhelm–Open door– Potential to address queries and disputes

Negotiated planning

• Core elements derived from enumeration• Further elements derived from city

agenda – connectivity, public space etc• Agreement on the elements• Generation of urban design options based

on elements• Negotiation of final option

Financial model• Preliminary model developed based on existing

approaches and costs• Updated according to enumeration data• Seeking to maximise income derived from

project without compromising core elements agreed based on enumeration and negotiation

• Must include long term maintenance sustainability

• The poorer the community, the larger the required public capital

• Public maintenance subsidy has to be finite

Execution

• No elements agreed until all agreed• Execution based on a clear set of

principles agreed with local authority (based on project principles)

• Execution phased

Fundamental principles

• Participation–Why? Rights, governance failure (alienation,

marginalisation), governance failure 2 (inability to renew in an inclusive manner)

• Inclusive outcomes– Rights–Needs– Justice

• Land readjustment as the central tool

Outcomes

• Fundamental nature of the enumeration process

• Constant reactionary pressure around property rights and traditional approaches

• Upgrading as a non-solution• Central concerns around non-property

interests• Need for an effective public-private

balance

Consistent challenges

• Time • Complexity• Even good legal frameworks leave a lot to be

desired• Institutional coordination• Political will and public private balance,

particularly in poor areas• Property rights and the social function of land• Speculation• Gentrification

Robert.Lewis-Lettington@unhabitat.org

Thank you