1

Politecnico di Milano Master Degree in Urban Planning and Policy Design 2008/09 Conflict Management – Prof. Carolina Pacchi Marcio Siqueira Machado

The case of Estaleiro do Só. How to waste an opportunity.

Introduction This was a huge project presented in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, last year. The owners of the lot tried to change the regulation for an area near the lake Guaíba. The masterplan does not allow to have residencial buildings in this part of the town, only offices but no housing. The developers wanted to build eight towers with 7 floors each, a new street near the lake, cyclepaths, a new public linear park, a new small pier and new facilities. The area was private, bought some years ago for a huge ammount. Before the area was an abondaned site. The main point of discussion is that that area is a strategic site for the city. It is in the coast of the lake and twenty minutes by car from the downtown area. Also in that region there are a big new shopping center and the actual soccer stadium “Beira-Rio” that will be renewed with an “arena” concept for the 2014 World Cup. But the physical aspects, for sure, were not the main issue in this case. The social context and mainly the way the discussions, or the process (because there was no real discussion) were done is very interesting. Social context The region of Rio Grande do Sul, of which Porto Alegre is the capital was the most influenced by german and italian immigration in the Brazil. The biggest flux of immigrants arrived in that region between 1850 and 1950. The consequences of this are clear. The immigrants started easily to build cooperatives and associations. The sense of community in the european countries were much stronger than in Brazil. This was brought together with these europeans. This feature was transmitted to the other generations and sprawled in the society. The history of participation and social commitment is well known in the region. Porto Alegre, for example was the first city in Brazil to have a participatory budget. Also the city host two times the World Social Forum, a global event used to be an alternative for the World Economic Forum theories that happens in Davos, Switzerland. Particpation, strong importance of social movements and a sense of citzenship is a typical characteristic of this region. The inhabitants of Rio Grande do Sul are proud of this. It is perceived as a part of the identity of the people from the south of the country. But this process has his own limitations. Let`s analyse the examples above. First, in the participatory budget, for example, there were the massive presence of just a part of the society, mainly the poor people. The discussions were done in two ways: by region in the city and by subject. By region is easy to guess where were the crowd meetings: the most poor regions of the city, where people needed deseperately some help and improvements in the infrastructure. As the city, like the biggest quantity of cities in the world but specially in Brazil, is hardlly segregated by income, the disccussions were between the same part of the society. When the discussions were done by subject, again happened a similar dynamic: in the important issues for the poor people (housing, infrastructure, health services) the meetings were attended by the same kind of people, in the others issues (culture, green spaces, sports) the rich part of the society attended. There were no big conflicts among different actors. There were no big enterprises, financial interests or media atention involved in these discussions. Although, the importance of the participatory budget in Porto Alegre can not be diminuished. It was a tool to activate the participation specially of the poor and not educated people. They felt that they could change something, that the municipality could be driven also to respond for their neeeds. The second example, the World Social Forum, was an internacionalization of these discussions. The social movements had the opportunity to discuss and think about the global issues with experts and scholars from the universities of the region but also with world known leaders. Again these debates were did among people who most of times had the same opinions about main issues. There were no huge differences, no argumentation.

2

The conflict The project was presented in the urban planning comission of the municipality. As a technical issue it was approved. The comission suggested that the regulations could be changed. Diferent from other places, like Milan for example, this is not so common in Porto Alegre. Although, as the project would require chnges in the law of the masterplan, the town council should approve it. There started the battle. For the transparency and democratic procedure of the process, there were some public hearings in the town council. At the same time, in the media and specially in some blogs and internet foruns, some people started to express their opinion. Also, very fastly, the two main newspaper of the city took a position. The biggest one, linked with the main building companies and big developers supported the project. The second newspaper of the city gave space for the social and ecologycal movements against it. There were clearly two groups. One made by left parties (against the “privatization” of that area and also agaisnt any initiative from big developers), green party, ecologists, associations of the surrounding neighborhoods (concerned mainly about trafic problems that the development would bring to that region) and also some students of architecture and the professional architect association. Supporting the project were the municipality (specially because of the money from taxes these new residencial area would bring), right parties, the building companies, the union of the workers in the construction, tourism sector and commerce chamber of the city. This was the scenario. The developers showed the images of the project. Actually the architect who did the project showed them. He was quite famous in the city but he had two “problems”. First he was working for the developers, he would earn much money building it. He couldn`t even pretend that he wanted to discuss the issue. It was clear that he wanted to build it, and specially the way things were showed. Critics for the project, automatically was to criticize his work. Second he has no skills to talk, negotiate and listen. Probally the developers thought they would not have problems to approve the project. The way it was presented seemed to be did to convince the town councilors, just. Global cities with renewed harbour areas, opportunities for commerce, touristic point, everything with no expenses for the municipality: this were the project they tried to sell. They did not think in different people with different opinions seeing that. And for this aim, it worked. Even the councilors from the left parties started to oppose the project more stongly just when they were pressured by the social movements. In the town council, there was no argumentation or negotiation. The ones who tried to discuss were the ones who supported the project. And they tried to negotiate only when they saw that the other part was strong also. Time was an issue just for the developers. Even knowing that the area was abonded the “against” part prefered no project than something built in the area. Some social movements used the court to stop the dedates becuase of legal aspects of the discussions. The president of the town council or the mayor could have worked as mediators or facilitatos but were linked with parties, interests: votes and economic support for political campaigns. The social movements started also to say that the other councilors were corrupt. The level of the debate was terrible. The groups finish the process hating each other. The weird solution The town council approved the change in the regulations. As this issue needed to be approved just by simple majority, it was easy for the developer. The town councilors knew that this would just put the problem in the table of the mayor. If they had not approved it, the decision would be their responsability. Then the mayor needed to confirm it but the pressure was stronger. Even stronger than in the begginning of the process. The media attention helped just the weaker group to get more mobilized against the project. The urban staff approved, the town council approved too but the pressure was big. The mayor, then, had a weird idea: a referendum. Weird because it would not solve the problem. It would be continued to be treated as an “yes” or “no” question. No negotiation, no bargain, no debates. Besides this, the costs to organize this referendum are huge. Some initial conclusions Coming back to the title of this paper, it was a way to waste an opportuniy because this could be an amazing chance to think about the reuse of an important area. The developers had the money, something quite difficult, not only in this crisis context but always in a poor country like Brazil. The society was mobilized. The conflict called attention of the city: small associations, social movements, developers, architects, political parties and also people that were not used to participate tried to enter in the discussion. This is good because this kind of project change the landscape of the city, all interests and opinions need to be at least considered. Besides a good project, new links could be created among these social movements during the process. But now the city don`t have even a good project. It is a wasted opportunity too because with the 2014 World Cup, lots of investments will be made near that area. It could be linked with this project. And referendum is not a social solution. The problem will remain.