Draft bill 391.

Summary.

The draft bill amends Law 6 of February 1, 2006 to define territorial and urban planning as an essential public function of the State. It directs land use, occupation and transformation toward the general interest, the social and environmental function of property, and sustainable development objectives. It establishes a planning hierarchy: plans provide the strategic and binding framework, while zoning and urban regulations must conform to them. It incorporates active management of land, urban value and development timing, permits technical adjustments under established criteria and procedures, and links unjustified failure to implement plans to the legal consequences prescribed by law.

Plans are defined as strategic, comprehensive and binding instruments setting objectives, priorities, urban structure and development criteria. They must have a planning horizon of no less than fifteen (15) and no more than twenty-five (25) years, without automatic revision merely because time has passed. Mandatory evaluation every five (5) years serves monitoring and accountability, but does not itself alter a plan’s structural provisions. A comprehensive or structural revision requires justified objective grounds, an enhanced public participation procedure and technical approval. It may not occur at intervals shorter than eight (8) years, except in cases of a declared emergency, natural disasters, or extraordinary demographic and infrastructure changes certified by the competent national authority.

Zoning regulates land uses, intensities and building parameters in detail and is subordinate to the plan. The preparation, adoption, amendment and implementation of plans, together with the use of urban management instruments, are subject to regulated administrative procedures, transparency and due process under Law 38 of July 31, 2000. Resulting decisions are technical in character; administrative remedies and the applicable administrative litigation actions are available. Partial plans and other instruments may adjust zoning if they preserve territorial and functional coherence and the plan’s structural provisions. Competent authorities may implement planning directly or through urban management instruments.

Those instruments include Mixed Facility Zones (Zonas de Equipamiento Mixto, ZEM), Urban Conservation Entities (Entidades Urbanísticas de Conservación), Improvement Areas (Áreas de Mejoramiento) and land trusts. Their use has an administrative character and public purpose; private law rules and applicable special legislation govern their establishment, operation and finances on a supplementary basis, subject to urban planning rules of public order and the rules on public property. Plans must set indicative deadlines for priority measures. Unjustified failure to meet them triggers administrative liability and allows subsidiary urban management mechanisms to be activated. Budgetary insufficiency is excepted when the responsible entity demonstrates timely financial efforts.

The amendment to Law 37 of June 29, 2009 assigns the district responsibility for preparing, approving and implementing its plans and links zoning changes to a technical update of the supporting plan. Additions to Law 106 of October 8, 1973 empower the municipality to establish association and management instruments to implement plans, allocate burdens and benefits, and develop infrastructure, without delegating regulatory planning authority. The Urban Planning Directorate (Dirección de Planificación Urbana) must have technical capacity, and administrative negligence or an unjustified lack of capacity may result in liability. The addition to Law 105 of October 8, 1973 provides for communal boards to cooperate on works and instruments affecting their corregimiento (district). A coordination provision refers to the Civil Code (Código Civil) and urban planning legislation; the text also provides for the law’s application without depending on supplementary legislation and for commencement upon promulgation. The subject matter concerns competent national authorities, municipalities and communal boards, as well as real estate development, infrastructure, urban planning and land management sectors.