White Paper on Sustainability of Spanish Urban Planning -- 2.0 Define a more sustainable urban structure and model

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White Paper on Sustainability of Spanish Urban Planning
José Fariña Tojo, José Manuel Naredo (directors)

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2.0 Define a more sustainable urban structure and model

2.01. Complexify land uses
This places the attention on any reference to making the land uses diverse or to imposing a minimum land space reserved for compatible uses.

2.02. Foster urban compactness (density, constructability, etc.)
It has always been considered that maximum densities have been on the agenda, taking a certain amount of care when these level were clearly insufficient in order to speak of density or compactness. In addition those articles in which an effort was made to control the expansion in the territory by encouraging growth next to already consolidated centres or the re-utilisation of already existing centres were included. There may be mentions of examples of minimum constructability or minimum densities, principally in Spain - the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, the Madrid Region, the Murcia Region, the Basque Country, Asturias, Cantabria, Catalonia and Rioja, even though they were included with some hesitation.

2.03. Foster polycentrism
This is a complicated criterion due to the fact that an excess of polycentrism may lead to a loss of vitality in urban life. However this is an objective to be achieved in the greater part of urban sustainability system indicators and therefore it has been treated very carefully (the reason for the few references to it in the list).

Discussion

In reality references to the three criteria are very scarce in the legislation. In the most cases these references are doubtful and when they do appear they generally refer to urban regulations. This is probably due not to a lack of interest but rather to the fact that most of the laws relating to planning criteria are directly inherited from the Land Act 1956, conceived to give content to property rights rather than to arrange the future image and face of the city. In particular, the direct and indirect references to the need to complexify the use of land and to foster polycentrism (even with the reservations mentioned above). The reference to diverse and complementary uses for urban land is especially direct in Castile-La Mancha Regional Act DL-1/2004. And polycentrism appears in a very clear but implicit form in Canary Islands Regional Act 19/2003.