White Paper on Sustainability of Spanish Urban Planning -- 2.1 Foster more sustainable use of the built stock

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

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2.1 Foster more sustainable use of the built stock

2.11. Foster intensive and efficient use of the built stock
Appears very rarely in the legislation. There are references to empty residences and to the regeneration of the built stock. Furthermore, there are a few mentions of the reuse of buildings and in some cases to the revitalisation of centres in those cases in which physical regeneration appears to be linked to new activities.

2.12. Favour rehabilitation (over new building)
Any mention of building rehabilitation has been included here; just as with the landscape, the references are very diverse in terms of quality and quantity and therefore the indicator has not been treated as one of the most reliable, above all if the fostering of the regeneration comes up against (or is at the expense of) new building.

2.13. Adopt bioclimatic criteria for urban development and building
This is manifestly important in order to achieve greater efficiency in the system. For this reason an effort has been made to be stricter on this point than on the rest. However, the scarcity of the references to the matter is surprising, although the legislation referring to it is quite precise and is not limited to general principles: it gets down to concrete details.

2.14. Foster the diversity of housing types
The difficulty to legislate on this matter is understandable and the greater part of the Communities do not pass laws, rather they publish guidelines or recommendations where they indicate the necessity to work to achieve this diversity.

2.15. Complexify the uses of buildings
A commentary very similar to the previous one could be applied to this case, although the responsibility would have to be shared between the planning and the approval of City Hall orders on this question.

Discussion

Of all the criteria that could give an idea of the state of play of this topic, the fostering of rehabilitation stands out because of the number of references and in terms of the legislation (Housing Plans, etc). For Galicia, Catalonia, Castile & León and the Canary Islands this is especially true. However the references to the rest of the criteria are very scarce if we make an exception of the adoption of bioclimatic criteria in national law and in the law of Galicia (technical code and Regional Act 9/2002 respectively). In order to obtain a clearer idea of the state of play on the question it is enough to say that that there is not even one mention of the fostering of the intensive use of the building heritage in 9 (of 17) communities. In 13 communities there is no reference to fostering diversity in housing types, and in 14 communities there is no mention of complexifying the use of the buildings. Therefore with reference to fostering a more sustainable use of the building heritage the situation is not especially favourable. Up to a certain point it is normal that one criterion for local characteristics is state level legislation (and not in all the criteria) and it is the most involved in the key question of global sustainability, and more specifically, in some of the elements which condition climatic change. However the paradox is that these same questions are directly related to local efficiency and with the possibility of making the cities which adopt these elements more competitive. Despite this, these questions hardly appear and when they do, as is the case with Galicia, they generate significant tensions.