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Nov 8, 1974 - The irregularity of urban growth is not limited to any one city; it has ... of this actually having been achieved, that of the state of Aguascalientes.
Irregular land: Public policies in the making

Fourth Urban Research Symposium 2007

IRREGULAR LAND: PUBLIC POLICIES IN THE MAKING Edith Jiménez and María Luisa García Dr. and Dr. University of Guadalajara [email protected] [email protected]

Summary: It is now acknowledged that public policies play a central role in encouraging, and even in reverting, the proliferation of irregular settlements, which have become an intrinsic part of the growth of cities in developing countries. This work describes, in detail, a method of participative evaluation for decision makers and academics interested in the design of policies for dealing with irregular settlements. The Workshop in Guadalajara, where this method was tried, illustrates two main points. Firstly, it confirms that the evaluation and the design of new policies are highly conflictive procedures. Secondly, it shows how, in spite of this, consensus can be created as an alternative to the traditional, hierarchical and authoritarian model of policy evaluation and design, making the successful application of policies a real possibility.

Key Words: Participative Design and Evaluation, Irregular Settlements, Conflict, Public Policies, Planning

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IRREGULAR LAND: PUBLIC POLICIES IN THE MAKING I.

INTRODUCTION

The irregularity of urban growth is not limited to any one city; it has been estimated that in the main cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America an average of 40 per cent of the population live in irregular settlements, and in some cities this figure is as high as 70 per cent (Fernandes & Varley, 1998: 3). 1 In the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, 2 the city with the second largest population in Mexico, irregular growth accounts for somewhere between 50 and 70 per cent of the expansion of the city in the eighties. 3 Subsequently, from the nineties to the beginning of the first decade of the new century, irregular urban expansion accounts for between 40 and 50 per cent of the growth of the metropolis (Fausto, 2003 and Jiménez, Cruz & Rábago, 2003: 12) (see Figures 1 and 2).

1

In this article the terms “irregular settlement” and “irregular growth” are used in their most general senses, without making a distinction between “irregular”, “informal” or “illegal” settlements and growth. They house mainly, but not only, low income population. Irregular settlements occupy land in contravention of the law or current regulations, whatever the type of tenure, whether ejido, public or private. Ejido land in Mexico is a kind of communal land. The term ejido is given to land held under a form of tenure peculiar to Mexico. This type of land can be used by the ejidatarios, but not mortgaged or sold. Its origins are to be found in the agrarian reform following the revolution that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although its use was primarily agricultural, the ejido land around urban areas has increasingly been put to urban uses. Recently, in January 1992, Article 27 of the constitution was amended thereby making it possible for ejido land to be privatised after going through an administrative process (see full details in Jimenez, 2000; and in Siembieda, 1996, where he writes about the different types of land tenure in Mexico and their origins). 2 The metropolitan area of Guadalajara consists of six municipalities: Guadalajara, Zapopan, Tonalá, Tlaquepaque, Tlajomulco and El Salto. 3 Siembieda (1996: 377) reckons that the informal occupation of land in the metropolitan area in the eighties amounted to 66 per cent, of the growth of the city, while Fausto (1999) estimated that 52 per cent of growth during the period was irregular. It is, however, necessary to bear in mind that these figures show the average for only four of the municipalities of the metropolitan area, and that looking at each of them separately shows very different processes to have been going on in different municipalities. The largest difference is between Guadalajara and the others: owing to the fact that the municipality of Guadalajara is almost entirely occupied and there is no land on the periphery available for irregular or any other kind of occupation. In effect, the growth of the municipality of Guadalajara during the period is much less than in either Zapopan, or Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, Tlajomulco or El Salto. In Guadalajara – as distinct from the other municipalities – there are only a few irregular settlements. In Zapopan irregular settlements began to become more widespread in the 80s, whilst in Tonalá and Tlaquepaque it was in the following decade, the 90s. Tlajomulco and El Salto increased their formal and informal urban development, at the end of the 90s and at the beginning of the first decade of the XXI Centruy.

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Figure 1. Irregular Settlement in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, Mexico

Figure 2. Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, Mexico

Guadalajara

Zapopan

Tonala

Tlajomulco Tlaquepaque El Salto

Source: Edith R. Jiménez Huerta

Source: Urbanized areas of each municipality, INEGI, 2004.

Generally speaking, since the seventies, political discourse in Mexico has expressed the intention of putting an end to irregular growth in the cities. However, so far there is only one documented case of this actually having been achieved, that of the state of Aguascalientes. In the capital city of this state, up until 1998, less than one per cent of the population were living on irregular land (Jiménez, 2000). But in the country as a whole three decades of planning have not been able to stop the irregular growth of its cities. This is mainly the result of structural problems such as a lack of resources in the public sector, and the poverty that makes it impossible for a large proportion of the population to gain access to land in the formal market. However, it is ever more widely accepted that there are also other reasons that help to explain why irregular settlements are formed. In 1996 and in 1999, the United Nations indicated that legislation, administration, land markets and public policies have also played a central role in the development of irregular settlements (UNCHS, 1996: 239, see also Smolka, 2003: 1). To these causes may be added: corruption, the lack of adequate responses by financial systems, and the lack of political will (WB and UND/UNCHS, 1999). In this context one of the most important advances in the debate on the urban land market for housing has been the recognition in Mexico and abroad, that the proper design and implementation of public policies can play a fundamental role in getting cities to grow in a more orderly fashion and in considerably reducing the problems generated by having large numbers of irregular settlements (Durand–Lasserve et al., 2002: 2; ESF/N–AERUS, 2001; Jiménez, 2000 and UNCHS, 1996). Hence the importance of the two tasks undertaken in this project. First an evaluation of how successfully public policies to attend to the problem of land irregularity have been applied in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara over the last decade. And then, in order to make sure that appropriate policies are more adequately applied, the Workshop described in this paper addresses the need to create, through consensus, an agenda setting out the priorities of policies for the future management of irregular settlements in cities (see Figure 2).

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The management of irregular settlements is a highly conflictive political question. One of the reasons for this is that the positions and the reactions of the actors involved (public officials, real estate agents, land owners, inhabitants of irregular settlements, groups of people who demand cheap land for housing, and others) are often based on contradictory individual or collective interests and perceptions, that condition the design and the application of public policies. The lack of consensus amongst the actors involved, limits the efficiency of the design and application of policies to deal with it. In Mexico where the conflictive nature of policy to manage irregularity is beginning to be acknowledged, efforts have been made to bring actors involved in the problem closer together in order to start to build a consensus that will allow policies to be more effective. Nevertheless, such efforts have made little progress, due to a large extent to the lack of participative methodologies that would allow the scale, the nature and the orientation of disagreements to be clearly identified. In principle, making land tenure secure and making urban growth more orderly are public policy aims that are readily accepted: who would wish to disagree with the idea of a policy that promises to improve the well being of society? And yet, in practice, general agreements about aims seem to get watered down during the process of formulating the policies. When it comes to defining how agreed aims should be applied to concrete situations, most times positions are reached that are not only divergent but even antagonistic. Here it becomes a matter of importance to break with the traditional forms of planning, where political actions are designed, directed and applied by groups of government “experts” following a hierarchical “top down” model (García, 2006). Such a break with tradition opens the way to schemes of participative planning based on dialogue and the building of consensus. In short, it has become necessary to promote systematic, collaborative, dialogue, as a suitable strategy for designing, applying and evaluating public policies. Thus, in the last few decades, participative planning has emerged as a creative way of designing public policies, assessing their relative importance and providing them with a more realistic basis for successful implementation, through the establishment of networks between those involved in planning and other interested parties. Such networks allow knowledge to be acquired and shared by those taking part, and create an awareness of the needs and capacities of each contributor by others, as well as leading to an understanding of the nature and the dynamics of the social problem to be dealt with (Innes & Booher, 2000). In Mexico, participative planning is present in the discourse of the government agencies in charge of urban planning, but the idea of collaborative dialogue as a systematic exercise that will allow consensus to be forged in the course of designing policies and taking decisions, is a long way away from their day to day activity. In practice the application of real exercises of participative planning, based on a dialogue of authentic collaboration, comes up against the incapacity of both individuals and organizations. Those taking part tend to sink into debates between the deaf and the dumb about which actors should be included in the design and application of public policies, and about how the process should be conducted (Innes & Booher, 2000; García, 2006). In this context, the development of exercises seeking to encourage a dialogue between the actors involved has an important part to play by showing that there is a “participative” way to design, manage and evaluate public policies, especially when dealing with particularly conflictive subjects, and it becomes possible to imagine that such a way might even become standard. To meet the need for dialogue and the collective discussion of complex public matters,

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following the present introduction, this paper provides, in three parts, an account of the development and the results of a Participative Evaluation Workshop on Public Policies for the Management of Irregular Settlements in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara (Taller de políticas públicas para el manejo de los asentamientos irregulares en el área metropolitana de Guadalajara). The first part explains the methodology used for the participative evaluation of public policies on the management of irregular settlements in Guadalajara at the Workshop. The second part gives the results of the Workshop, and, finally, the third section presents the authors’ conclusions. II. METHODOLOGY OF PARTICIPATIVE EVALUATION In order to conduct a diagnosis of the problem as seen by policy makers, and then to get them to make a participative evaluation of public policies and practices for the management of irregular settlements in the city of Guadalajara, a Workshop of Participative Evaluation was designed and held, as one of a series of local development seminars given by the Decentralization Studies Program of the Department of Regional Studies – INESER at the University of Guadalajara. It was held in July 2001, with the participation of 22 public officials from federal, state and municipal governments, and 6 interested academics specializing in the subject (a list of those taking part may be consulted in Annex 1). The Workshop was conceived of as a space for mutual learning, based on discussion and the exchange of ideas, where those taking part (the public officials and specialized academics) would be able to analyze the practices and public policies for dealing with land, that had been applied in the nineties. The participants’ task was to share their experience, their perceptions and expectations of the policies studied, to bring relevant information to the evaluation, and to take part in the discussion and a dialogue that would create a consensus. A participative evaluation such as that described here, because it is made by actors involved in the process of designing and applying policies, helps to guarantee that the most relevant subjects are taken into account, and it allows those involved to take a personal interest, and to assume a responsible attitude towards the results of the evaluation. The participative procedure also provides what amounts to a shared teaching and learning experience for those taking part. It helps to strengthen the evaluation skills of those taking part, increases the comprehension participants may already have of the subjects or situations studied, and it should improve communication between actors who have worked at the different levels of policy application (Aubel, 2000). 4 The aim of the evaluation described in this work was to discover what was obstructing the application of public policies designed for the management of irregular settlements in the city of Guadalajara, and then do something about it. To reach this end, the Workshop set out to conduct two activities: a) To make an evaluation of the principle practices and policies for dealing with the management of irregular settlements in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara from 1990 to 2000. b) To create and evaluate a series of mutually agreed policies and Actions to improve the management of land irregularity in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara for the future. 4

This is an academic exercise that included only two types of participants, policy makers and interested academics. A more comprehensive Workshop would include a wider range of actors, such as real estate developers, landlords, ejidatarios and inhabitants of irregular settlements.

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There were two basic principles guiding the work to be done in the Participative Evaluation Workshop. The first was that of open, free and equal participation, and the second was to make sure that all those attending the Workshop took part, so that it would be possible to build a consensus on the basis of debate and argument, rather than with respect to the position, the job title or rank of any of those attending. The development of a Participative Evaluation Workshop requires very hard work in at least three stages. The first is all the preliminary work of organizing the Workshop and preparing the materials. The second is running the Workshop itself, and the third consists of systematizing and presenting the results. See the following Diagram 1 to have a summary of the stages of the Workshop. Diagram 1. Procedure for the development of the Workshop to evaluate past and future policies to manage irregular settlements

Initial diagnosis (Newspaper review)

List of past policies & elements for their evaluation (policies, actions, objectives and evaluation)

List of future policies & elements for their evaluation

Summary

Provided by the organizers

Provided by the organizers

Provided by the organizers

Current situation

General assessment Magnitude of the problem of irregular settlements

Stage 1

Stage 2 Analysis of 9 future policies

Analysis of past 12 policies 1990 – 2000

Stage 3

General meeting

- Proposed actions that facilitate their application

Assessed their level of acceptance:

- Assessed the favourable & negative situations that can stop policies from being implemented

- High - Moderate

- Determined their relative importance and possibilies of application

1. Participants reviewed and discussed the list. Complemented the list

Participants propose for each policy: - Actions - Advantages & Obstacles - Priority & Feasibility

2. Decided level of acceptance

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Presentation: Preliminary results

Irregular land: Public policies in the making

Fourth Urban Research Symposium 2007

It was considered essential for all those taking part in the Workshop to start from the same point, so an important part of the preliminary work done by the organizers, was to undertake a diagnosis of the principal practices and public policies used to manage land for housing in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara. This was done through a review of newspapers for the decade5 between 1990 and 2000. This information provided the basis for compiling a list of the twelve public policies and government practices identified as the most important and most commonly resorted to by successive federal, state and municipal governments to deal with irregular settlements (see Table 1). Table 1. Policies and Practices for the Management of Irregular Settlements, 1990 – 2000 1.

Creation of territorial reserves

2.

Housing developments, urbanizing land and the provision of credits by federal dependencies

3.

Regularization of land tenure on ejido property

4.

Regularization of land tenure on private property

5.

Planning

6.

Control of irregular settlements

7.

Imprisonment of illegal developers

8.

Forcible eviction

9.

Relocation of inhabitants

10. Demolition 11. Laxity 12. Corruption Source: Own elaboration on the basis of newspaper review of El Informador from 1990 to 2000, 2001.

A study of the practices and policies chosen showed that there was a general tendency for their application to be lax. During the nineties, the public sector tolerated the informal occupation of land – in fact it has not tried to stop it since the seventies – and then favoured a policy of massive and systematic regularization through the land regularization committee CORRETT (acronym of its name in Spanish). 6 In recent decades forcible eviction, the demolition of housing and relocation have not been the state of Jalisco government’s most favoured policies for controlling the informal growth of the city. Even when these policies have been applied, it has been very selectively, and such actions have been directed principally to zones where the population is exposed to risk (for example of flooding). Of the policies that have been applied, programs of credits for housing have been a part of federal policy since the seventies in the country as a whole; but although they are important, these have tended to 5

It was decided to revise issues of El Informador as it is one of the few papers in the city that has been on sale for a long time, and there are examples for public consultation in the State Newspaper Library. This matters because the newspaper review undertaken covered thirty years (1970–2000), though for the Workshop only the last ten years were taken into account. The list of policies was drawn up by one of the co–ordinators of the project, Edith R. Jiménez Huerta, on the basis of her ten years experience in the study of public policies relating to land, interviews previously conducted with public officials and bibliography reviewed for the research project financed by El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), Atlas para la Producción del Suelo Urbano. 6 The Land Regularization Committee (CORRETT) was created by the federal government on the 8th November 1974 to regularize irregular settlements on ejido lands.

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benefit the middle class and not the majority of those inhabiting cities. Neither has the creation of territorial reserves been a priority for land policy in the vast majority of cities in Mexico, and this includes the metropolitan area of Guadalajara. For this reason and for lack of other, social or private, options, the supply of cheap formal market land has been insufficient. Corruption – which includes nepotism, and access to privileged information by politicians and power groups – is not exactly a policy but it is a general feature of Mexican politics, and has been an integral part of land policies; it is therefore included in the evaluation. As part of the initial diagnosis, the organizers proposed nine future policies for the attendants of the Workshop to evaluate (see Table 2). In this list, it was decided to deliberately include “the management of irregular land”, i.e. to consider the intervention in irregular settlements to set minimum standards (making sure all lots have access to the street, etc.) and in emergencies. The aim was to obtain information about how easy or difficult it was for the public officials and academics taking part in the Workshop to accept that irregularity had existed for 15 or 20 years in the city of Guadalajara and that it was necessary to manage it, and not just slow it down or reduce it. Table 2. Policies Proposed for the Future 1. Regularization of land tenure by means of direct negotiations between the municipality and the ejidatarios 2. To guarantee land tenure to inhabitants in all irregular settlements not in dangerous places, on ejido land 3. To guarantee land tenure to inhabitants in all irregular settlements not in dangerous or protected places, on private property 4. To facilitate the participation of organized civil society in obtaining cheap land 5. To manage irregular settlements 6. Systematic application of penalties to those who sell land that would put inhabitants at risk or is located in a protected area 7. To legislate for governments to continue with policies and planning created prior to their own administrative period 8. To create a State (of Jalisco) Institute of Land and Housing (semi-state or paraestatal organization) to propose policies, give them continuity and oversee them in all the municipalities 9. To apply the regulation for expropriating private and ejido land that has been designated as land for territorial reserves in the Urban Development Plans of the municipalities Source: Own elaboration on the basis of previous research by Edith R. Jiménez Huerta, 2001.

With this material prepared, the Workshop was organized in three stages: a) The first stage began with the evaluation the policies and government practices applied between 1990 and 2000 (listed above in Table 1). 7 To analyze these policies, a method of “simplified group evaluation” was applied. Five small working groups, of around five people each, were formed by arbitrary selection. Each group was handed a printed document listing the twelve policies and government practices of the last ten years that had been applied by the public sector to deal with the irregular development of urban 7

In drawing up the list, the principal criteria for defining the relative importance of public policies applied in the years 1990– 2000, were: number of times mentioned in the newspaper, number of people involved, and public agency responsible.

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land in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara. The list, prepared in advance by the organizers, named each of the Policies and Actions along with their Objectives, and also included an evaluation Evaluation (for example: “Very widespread. Principally done through the Commission for the Regularization of Land Tenure (CORETT), encouraged more irregularity, and created a culture of illegal access to land among the population from 1970.” See complete list in Annex 2, List 1). In order to make the original list more complete, participants were asked to add other policies that they considered important but had not been taken into account. Every group was given a Form to be filled in by its members (see Form 1 in Annex 3) with the names of any policies they thought should be included. After the members of each group had discussed the original list and in some cases enlarged it, each team was asked to evaluate which of the twelve policies or actions originally on the list, should stay unchanged, which should be modified and which should be completely discarded (see working Form 2 in Annex 3). In order to process the answers and obtain a global evaluation by all those present, we assigned “0” to policies or actions not evaluated by those taking part in the Workshop, “1” to policies they rejected, “2” to the policy that should continue but in modified form and “3” to the policy that should continue to be applied unchanged. With this information, each policy could be given a “mark”. In those cases where the qualification amounted to 5 or less, the policy was marked “Rejected”, where the figure was more than 5 and no more than 10, the policy was judged to be “Moderately” acceptable and policies that got more than 10 were considered to have a “High” level of acceptance (see Table 3). b) Second stage. The initial diagnosis presented to participants in the Workshop asserts that the government practices and public policies applied so far to intervene in problems of land irregularity, have not only failed to stop irregular growth, but have encouraged it. It also states that there has been a failure to supply cheap formal land in sufficient quantities to meet the real demand. On the basis of these observations, nine new policies that might contribute to a better management of irregularity in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara were suggested to participants in the Workshop. Thus the second part of the Workshop was dedicated to an evaluation by participants of the policies proposed for the future by the organizers (Listed above in Table 2). The evaluation by members of the Workshop was made through the application of a method of “interactive individual work”. Nine polystyrene boards (the material known as “unicel” that allows cards to be attached to it with drawing pins) were placed on the walls, one for each new policy. Each board was divided into five columns (see Form 3 in Annex 3). In the first column, each participant would stick a card that he, or she, had written on saying what Actions the public official or academic thought it was necessary to take to get the proposed policy or practice to work. This way of proceeding was adopted with the aim of letting all those taking part know what the other participants proposed should be done with regard to the successful application of each of the practices or policies set up on the boards (The summary of Actions proposed by the participants can be seen in Annex 4, Table 1A). Next, and again working on their own, each participant would read all the cards stating the Actions just proposed by all participants in the Workshop, for each of the nine new policies. Then he, or she, would write on another card the factors that would

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propitiate the application of such Actions and pin it to the second column labelled “Advantages”. In a third card, participants wrote what “Obstacles” they foresaw to successful application the policies might expect to encounter. These cards were pinned in the third column labelled “Obstacles”. In order to make sure everyone was using the same criteria, it was previously agreed with the participants that “Advantages” were to be defined as the opportunities that existed for applying the Actions, rather than the future benefits that their application might bring. Such “Advantages” (or favourable circumstances) might be any situations, resources, knowledge or deeds that would facilitate putting such Actions into practice. “Obstacles” (or hindrances) were defined as events, conditions, processes or circumstances that were likely to block the realization of these Actions. However, often the participants in the Workshop considered the perception of future benefits as being in itself one of the factors propitiating successful application of the policy, i.e. “Advantages”. In order to exclude extreme optimism or pessimism and to ensure that the identification of “Advantages” and “Obstacles” would be the result of a reasoned effort, each member of the Workshop was allowed to suggest only one “Advantage” and one “Obstacle” to the realization of the Actions proposed for each. These last were then put up on the boards, on cards pinned up in the third column, allowing all those taking part to read them, and if they found that some of their opinions had already been put up, they could think of alternative suggestions and add them. c) Finally, at the third stage of the Workshop, participants read through the whole range of Actions proposed, along with their “Advantages” and “Obstacles”, in order to establish the Priority and the Feasibility of each policy, that is to determine how important it was, and how likely it was to be successfully applied. They gave each policy a score from 1 to 10, to reflect the degree of priority they thought it should be given, and another to show to what extent they thought it would be possible for the set of Actions required by each policy to be applied. Those taking part gave marks for the relative importance of each policy, in the fourth column on the boards, and their marks for Priority averaged out at 9.4 out of ten for the highest estimate and 5.6 for the lowest. In the fifth column participants noted their estimates of the likelihood each policy had of actually being applied. The range of possible marks for Feasibility was also from 1 to 10, and this time the averages ranged from a maximum of 7.3 to a minimum of 4.7. The mark 6 and above for Feasibility meant that a policy had a chance of being applied, but anything under six meant that the policy essentially had no chance of being successfully applied (see the first two columns, corresponding to the “Optimistic view” in Table 4, ahead). The purpose of this final exercise was, first, to find out how important members of the Workshop considered each of the policies to be, and secondly, the possibilities they saw for designing particular programmes that would include the Actions proposed to make sure the policies could be successfully applied. From this evaluation of Priority and Feasibility it would be possible to identify how far apart the participants’ views of what should be done were from what could be done; this was done by comparing Priority with Feasibility, in the first two columns (Optimistic view). The second two columns (Pessimistic view) give figures adjusted to the divergence of opinion for all nine policies.

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III. WORKSHOP RESULTS Having explained the methodology of the Workshop in the previous section, in this next part we present a review of the results obtained from the Workshop, before presenting some of the conclusions that can be drawn from the event. The results of the Workshop were of two kinds. First it produced an analysis of the practices and policies applied in the 90s to control and to slow the rate of growth of irregular settlements in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, and secondly, it made an evaluation of policies proposed for the future with the same objective of slowing the rate of growth of irregularity. 1. Evaluation of the practices and public policies applied in the 90s to control and to slow the rate of growth of irregular settlements in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara As Table 3 shows, of the twelve practices and public policies applied in the 90s that were evaluated by the members of the Workshop, six had a high level of acceptance; three polices were considered merely acceptable and the other three were generally rejected as unacceptable. Table 3. Evaluation of public policies applied during the years 1990 – 2000 in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara

I

EVALUATION MADE BY THE TEAMS II III IV V Mark given Acceptability

1. Construction of housing, urbanizing land and providing credits from federal organizations 2. Creation of territorial reserves

2

2

2

3

2

11

High

2

2

2

2

3

11

High

3. Regularization of land tenure on ejido property

2

2

2

2

2

10

High

4. Regularization of land tenure on private property

2

2

2

2

2

10

High

5. Planning

2

2

2

2

2

10

High

6. Control of irregular settlements

2

3

3

2

0

10

High

7. Imprisonment of illegal developers

2

3

3

0

0

8

Moderate

8. Forcible eviction

2

3

2

0

0

7

Moderate

9. Relocation of inhabitants

2

2

3

0

0

7

Moderate

10. Laxity

1

1

1

1

1

5

Rejected

11. Corruption

1

1

1

0

1

4

Rejected

12. Demolition

2

0

3

0

0

5

Rejected

POLICIES GROUPS

Source: Own elaboration on the basis of answers from those attending seminar in 2001. Note: 0 = Policy not evaluated, 1 = Policy completely rejected, 2 = Policy should continue but with modifications, 3 = Policy should continue unchanged

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1.1. Highly acceptable policies To those taking part, the most acceptable of the policies and practices of the nineties, were: • The construction of housing, the urbanizing of land and the provision of credits by federal organizations • The creation of territorial reserves • The regularization of land tenure, on ejido property • The regularization of land tenure, on private property • Planning • The control of irregular settlements Although these policies were judged to be highly acceptable and those taking part agreed that they should continue to be applied without changes, it was also proposed that certain changes needed to be made to make sure they could actually be put into practice. This implies making important changes at the three levels of government, including improvements in coordination between government departments, the development of skills, and a better management of the budget (see Annex 4, Table 2A, where it will be noted that even the most acceptable policies were all considered by the participants to require changes of some kind). Institutional changes Some of the most important changes that members of the Workshop said should be made, in order to make the application of the most acceptable policies already on the books more effective, are the following: the management of federal housing programs should be transferred to states and municipalities; the municipalities should be given more powers; form filling should be made more transparent; a municipal office should be created to be in charge of regularization (even though it already exists); encouragement should be given to citizen autonomy; and there should be a better follow-up of planning. It was also proposed that committees be formed of people representing the three levels of government, along with other committees that would include investors and citizens. Finally, it was noted that it was important for the administration to be simplified, for housing programs to become more flexible, to cut out red tape and to give the programs limits of space and time, that is, deadlines. Development of skills It was suggested that officials would need to develop special skills if the objectives of land and housing programs were to be more successfully met, if regularization was to be conducted more efficiently, if the formation of irregular settlements was to be prevented through inspections and vigilance, and if public consultation was to become more widespread. It was also considered that there was a need for citizens to be trained, so they could know what the relevant Plans were and would be able to follow them up, and also to improve their own neighbourhood organization. Furthermore, it was suggested that the citizens involved should be integrated into the process of land planning. Budget Another kind of change of this type that was suggested – not to the policies themselves so much as to the background to their application – was to increase the budget as a key to getting the plans it was proposed to continue with, applied more effectively in the future. For this, it would be necessary to make changes to the legislation, so in the federal budget a fixed percentage of the national GDP (normally the same percentage every year, at least during each six-year presidential term), could be assigned to land and housing programs in the

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country as a whole, before assigning particular amounts to each state – as in other areas, such as education, health service, etc. 1.2. Policies deemed acceptable The policies evaluated as merely acceptable were: • Imprisonment of illegal developers • Relocation of inhabitants • Eviction The evaluation of these policies was the most controversial, as Table 3, above, shows; only three teams participated actively in the evaluation and two did not. Of the two that refused to take part, Team Four said that these were not policies but instruments, and that it was necessary to make laws so those living in areas exposed to risks could be forced to move. Team number Five gave no reasons for keeping quiet. These differences made the three policies in question merely acceptable, meaning that in the opinion of those attending the Workshop they could be continued but only subject to important modifications. According to the information presented in Annex 4, Table 2A, the most important modifications needing to be made for these policies to continue, have to do principally with institutional change. It is important to note that for most of those taking part in the Workshop, actions like these should be applied only in specific cases, such as when, for example, the settlements are located in places that present a risk to the health or the lives of the inhabitants. Although one team proposed forcible eviction as a preventative measure, to discourage irregularity, on the whole there was a concern that any removal should be regulated in such a way that it would be conducted with due respect to legal form. As for measures such as imprisoning illegal developers, it was considered important for there to be a strong co-ordination between institutions if the sanctions were to be applied, if vigilance was going to be increased and if illegal developers were going to be detected so the law could then be properly applied. Finally it was considered that changes should be made to the Urban Development Law (Ley de Desarrollo Urbano) so that severer sanctions could be applied to illegal developers. It was agreed that for these policies to work, it was necessary to have the resources for acquiring enough territorial reserves and be able to offer the population alternative cheap land for housing legally. 1.3. Policies that were rejected The policies and practices that were rejected were: • Demolition • Laxity • Corruption Especially the first of them, Demolition, was highly polemical. Three groups of five gave it no marks at all for being acceptable, while the other two groups of participants gave it enough marks to pass, but one without changes and the other only with modifications. However, evaluations of laxity and corruption were more homogeneous. The majority considered these practices should not continue and only one group decided it was impossible to evaluate corruption as being either acceptable, or merely acceptable, or else unacceptable. To stop these two policies or practices (laxity and corruption), it was considered important to introduce institutional changes, but the most favoured changes proposed were those that involved the development of skills, i.e. training. Institutional changes

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These were to be made especially for the case of Demolition. It was proposed that this policy should only ever be applied to settlements at risk. At the same time, those taking part in the Workshop thought that the law should grant the municipal authorities more powers to apply this policy and follow it through. Development of skills The elimination of laxity and corruption, according to those attending, is related to increasing the social skills needed to watch and denounce such practices. Thus, it is necessary to support organized citizen participation so as not to let laxity and corruption continue. To sum up, those attending the Workshop considered that, of the twelve policies and actions applied during the previous ten years to stop the growth of the number of irregular settlements and to manage them, all but three (Demolition, Laxity and Corruption) should be allowed to continue without modifications – although administrative, political or circumstantial changes to make the application of these policies more effective were suggested for them all. In six of the twelve cases, there was little opposition to the idea that the policy should continue as it is, and these polices were classified as “highly acceptable”. But in four cases, there was less support for the idea that the policy should continue unchanged, and the majority considered that for these four policies or practices to continue (three “merely acceptable” policies and one “rejected” practice), they should only be applied selectively. Finally, just two practices were rejected out of hand. Those attending the Workshop were asked, as part of the methodology followed, to add on the form they had been given, any policy not included in the original list of twelve, applied in the 90s (see Annex 3, Form 1). But those taking part added no policy for the past decade, that they felt had been left out of the initial diagnosis. What they did, without being asked, was to add a total of ten new policies that they considered should be applied in the future. Attendants proposed that the expected demand for housing in each municipality should be determined in advance, and made various suggestions of new ways of incorporating ejido land into urban use. One option was to study more thoroughly the Programme of Certifying ejido Rights and Giving Titles to Areas of Land Set Aside for Urban Use, known as PROCEDE, from its initials in Spanish, and the Program for Incorporating Social Land (ejidos and indigenous communities), known as PISO (from its initials in Spanish). It was also suggested that a good option would be to have integrated planning, and another, to support the mobilization and the participation of the public. 2. Analysis of policies proposed to stop the growth of irregularity in the future After reviewing the policies of the previous decade, and commenting on their own suggestions for the future, members of the Workshop made an evaluation of nine policies proposed by the Workshop organizers for application in the future. Each participant took part in all three tasks of this evaluation. The first task was to give marks, from one to ten, for the relative importance of each policy (“Priority”) and then for the chances each of them had of being successfully applied (“Feasibility”). The second task was to write their point of view on the propitiating and obstructing factors (“Advantages” and “Obstacles”) that exist and are liable to help or to hinder the successful implementation of each policy. In the light of these considerations, the third task was for the members of the Workshop to define and write the “Actions” that they considered necessary if the polices proposed for the future were to have a chance of success (see Annex 4, Table 1A, this is valuable information for the interested reader

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to refer to). The form used to carry out the three tasks can be seen in Annex 3, Form 3. But first, we can see some of the implications of the evaluation made by those attending the workshop in relation to the “Priority” or relative importance and “Feasibility” of the nine future policies that were presented to the participants by the organizers. 2.1. Priority and Feasibility of policies suggested for future application In Table 4, those policies that were given either a high degree of importance (Priority) or that stood a good chance of being applied (Feasibility), i.e. of 8 or more in both cases, are printed in Green. Those printed in an Orange box are the marks of between 6 and 7.9, given to policies judged to have a moderate degree of importance or a moderate chance of being successfully applied. Marks below 6, in Red, mean the policy was deemed to be of little importance or to have very little chance of being applied. Table 4. Evaluation of practices and policies proposed for future application en terms of their relative importance and chances of success Optimistic view* Priority Feasibility

Policies

Pessimistic view** Priority Feasibility

1. Legislate for governments to continue with policies and planning introduced before the start of each new administration

9.4

6.9

8.5

4.8

2. Systematic punishment for those who sell or settle in dangerous areas

8.5

5.2

5.9

3.6

3. Provide secure land tenure to all irregular settlements not located in risky or protected areas on private property

8.4

7.3

6.6

4.8

4. Regularization of land tenure by means of direct negotiations between the municipality and ejidatarios

8.3

6.0

5.6

4.8

5. Apply the regulation for expropriating private and ejido land designated for Territorial Reserves in the Urban Development Plans of the municipalities

8.0

4.7

5.2

2.4

6. Facilitate the participation of organized civil society in the acquisition of cheap land

7.9

6.9

5.3

4.3

7. Create a State Institute of Land and Housing to make proposals, provide continuity and monitor the policies of all the municipalities

7.9

6.3

5.3

4.0

8. Guarantee security of tenure in all irregular settlements on ejido land that are not located in risky places

7.2

6.2

4.2

4.3

9. Managing irregular land as a valid alternative for gaining access to land

5.6

5.5

3.9

3.3

Source: Own elaboration based on answers given by those attending seminar in 2001. * Simple average. It does not take into account the divergence of opinions. ** Average with standard deviation. It takes the divergence of opinions into account.

A careful review of the evaluation made by those attending the Workshop of the policies that might be applied in the future to slow the growth of irregularity, shows four features with particular clarity. First, it is evident from the marks given for “Priority” and “Feasibility” that trying to reach an agreement on policies that have to do with land, is bound to be a

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conflictive process, as the differences between some of the marks are so great. The polemical nature of this process is seen in the fact that even when policies were given a high Priority, their application was judged to be impossible. For example, the new policy considered to be the most important, “Legislating for governments to continue with policies made before the current administration took office”, is also considered one that has only a moderate chance of being applied (Policy 1, Table 4). It is also clear from the Table above just how polarized the opinions of the public officials and academics attending the Workshop were. It was common to find that while some policies were given a high Priority and a moderate chance of being successfully applied, by some members of the Workshop, other participants gave the same policies a low mark. Hence the divergence between the results in the first two columns, where the opinion of those attending the Priority is recorded as a simple average, and the last two columns, where the average is presented with standard deviation. This divergence leads to the conclusion that although at first sight six of the new policies proposed have a reasonable chance of being applied (see second column in Table 4), in reality, taking into account the widely differing opinions of those attending, none of them has any chance of being applied (see the final column in Table 4). The second feature that stands out after studying the evaluation made in the Workshop of the policies proposed, is that both according to the optimistic (see the first two columns of Table 4, above) and the pessimistic (see the last two columns of Table 4) outlooks, the policy of “Legislating for governments to provide continuity to the policies and the planning created by previous administrations” (number one on the list) was considered to be the most important. While the policy given the least importance, according to both the optimistic and the pessimistic views, was that of “managing irregular land as a valid alternative for gaining access to land”, the last on the list. Finally, without regard to its relative importance, the policy with the best chances of being applied was, according to the optimistic outlook, number three on the list: that of “Giving secure land tenure to all inhabitants of irregular settlements on private property that are not located in dangerous or protected areas”. According to the pessimistic outlook, no policy had any real chance of being applied but the three policies with the best chances (so to say) were: number one on the list, “Continuity in policies from one administrative period to the next”, number three, which is to “Give secure land tenure to all irregular settlements on private property that are not located in dangerous or protected areas” and policy number four, which proposes the “Regularization of land tenure by means of direct negotiations between the municipality and the ejidatarios”. Thus, the optimistic and pessimistic outlook lead to the conclusion that the most feasible policy was that of Providing secure land tenure to inhabitants of irregular settlements on private property, whilst the policy with the least likelihood of being successfully applied is number five on the list: “To apply the regulation for expropriating private and ejido land for Territorial Reserves in the municipalities”. Readers can draw their own conclusions from the table, but it might be worth repeating that the policy thought to be the most important (the only important policy according to the pessimistic view) also had top marks for Feasibility once divergences were taken into account. This was “To legislate for continuity between one administration and the next”.

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2.2. Actions that need to be taken to ensure the successful application of the new policies suggested: “Advantages” and “Obstacles” Having assigned marks to each of the new policies proposed, in terms of their relative importance, and having estimated their chances of being successfully applied, the Workshop considered the Actions that would need to be taken to ensure successful application of the policies. These are presented in full in Annex 4, Table 1A. In effect, no one attending the Workshop was able to rest with the assumption that simply suggesting a new policy would be enough to put it into effect and solve the problem it addressed. Participants indicated the “Advantages” or favourable circumstances that would be most likely to help with getting the nine new policies put into practice, and the “Obstacles” that were likely to hinder the successful application of each policy. A summary of the Actions considered necessary by those attending the Workshop as well as the Advantages and Obstacles are presented here; for those interested in planning for the management of irregular settlements, and as example of the kind of results that can be obtained using this method of collective participation. a) Legislate for governments to continue with policies created before the start of each new term of office This policy is considered to be of the very highest Priority, as it will guarantee the evolution and improvement of “Actions” and programs, and will optimize the use of resources already invested. The “Advantage” or factor in favour of giving legislation continuity is that once established, public officials will have no choice but to respect previous plans. However, the “Feasibility” of this policy is reckoned to be poor or very bad due to three foreseeable hindrances. The first “Obstacle” expected by the Workshop is that the executive branch of government will not want to press for legislation that goes against its own interests. And for the same reason, even if it was passed and made obligatory, it is not likely that it will be put into practice. The second Obstacle detected to applying this policy is the lack of social commitment on the part of the legislators. Finally, the third Obstacle is that their own policies are more important to incoming public officials than those applied by officials from an outgoing administration. As Actions suggested to make it possible for continuity to be established, the Workshop proposed the creation of a non-government organization, legislation to make continuity obligatory, evaluating previous policies to see whether they have worked or not, and to sustain programs through popular participation. b) Systematic punishment of those who sell or settle in dangerous areas This policy was considered the second most important, as penalizing offenders can considerably reduce the number of people selling irregular plots and this, it is believed, will slow down the rate at which land is occupied irregularly. Those attending the Workshop were of the opinion that diminishing the illegal sale of land was useful in various ways, as it would also reduce the amount of fraud, limit the number of people exposed to environmental risk, and lessen urban disorder. The application of this policy would be facilitated by the fact that there already are legal instruments to punish those who infringe the law, which only have to be applied. However, the application of any such policy is bound to be controversial, and the likelihood of its actually being put into practice is low. It was thought that the main impediment to the instrumentation of this policy would be the political cost to those in government. Nevertheless, to strengthen the legal framework, typifying the offence of occupying or selling land in areas where the population is put at risk more clearly, forming a team that could detect

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and punish illegal developers, along with monitoring, and the training of public officials to conduct it, are all Actions that would help to get those who sell and those who settle in dangerous areas sanctioned. One example of a sanction that was mentioned was the expropriation from ejidatarios of land sold by them in areas dangerous for human habitation. Finally, a more positive measure suggested was to explain to the ejidatarios and private land owners how they could develop their land legally. c) Provide secure land tenure to all inhabitants of irregular settlements not located in risky or protected areas on private property This policy was judged to be the third most important. Those attending the Workshop considered that getting security of tenure for irregular settlements not located in dangerous areas would have the effect of decreasing the number of irregular settlements that were located in such places. Participants reckoned that for this policy to be successfully applied, the authorities would need information that allowed them to identify those areas where inhabitants would not be exposed to danger, and that it would also be necessary to know which were protected areas, which areas were appropriate for the development of housing: hence which areas would be suitable for regularization and which not. It would also be necessary to practise greater vigilance to prevent areas exposed to danger from being occupied. Nevertheless, as with the other policies and practices considered to be of the greatest importance, the mark for Feasibility is modest or low, because it was thought there were insufficient resources for applying the measure, not enough trained personnel, and a lack of interest on the part of the authorities, while the information on irregular settlements is incomplete and not always reliable. To be able to provide better security of tenure in irregular settlements located on private property, it was argued that the land needed to be regularized and that it would therefore be very useful to inform the inhabitants of irregular settlements of the procedures for regularizing land tenure. d) Regularization of land tenure by means of direct negotiations between the municipality and ejidatarios Fourth in the list of new policies to be applied in the future in order to control the growth of irregular settlements is the regularization of ejido land directly by the municipality. As in the case of all the other polices considered to be a Priority, the mark for Feasibility is modest to low, even though the mark for relative importance is high. The application of this policy was thought to have certain Advantages that would persuade local officials to stay with it. First, it would help with inter-municipal planning. Second, it would make it easier for the municipalities to guarantee that regularized settlements fulfilled their obligation to set aside areas for services and public urban installations (schools, nurseries, health centres, etc.). The third factor that would propitiate its application was the benefit it offered of making administrative procedures easier (cutting red tape), minimizing corruption, simplifying applications; all of which would reduce the prices of land. But to be able to apply this policy it is necessary to open spaces that can bring the ejidatarios and the municipality closer together. In particular, it was suggested that there should be a municipal office directly responsible for regularizing land tenure, and propitiating the association of the municipality with the ejidatarios in order to transform rural ejido land into land fit for urban uses. Although the municipality would be in charge of directing the regularization, it was also thought that the other levels of government should still be involved. It was considered appropriate for the PROCEDE (Programme of certifying Ejido Rights and Giving Titles to Comunal Land Designated for Urban Use), to regularize irregular settlements on disincorporated

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ejido land. In order to regularize the tenure of ejido land it is necessary for the municipality to have reliable territorial information, which means supporting the ejidatarios so they can accurately identify the limits of their ejidos and of those areas of land that are susceptible to being regularized. At the same time it is necessary for the municipality to have reliable territorial information that registers which areas are in a state of irregularity. The greatest Obstacle to the successful application of this policy is the absence of a true working freedom of action for the municipality, which is due to created interests already in existence and the always conflictive nature of such interests. e) Apply the regulation for expropriating private and ejido land designated for Territorial Reserves in the Urban Development Plans of the municipalities This is the fifth most important policy on the list of new policies to be applied in the future, and its Feasibility is reckoned to be the least of all nine considered. If it were to be applied, this policy would make a positive contribution to the planning of the metropolitan area, directing the growth of the city in a determined fashion and preventing the development of irregular settlements. It would also make it possible to make land tenure more secure. And yet, it is the policy least likely to be applied because of three main Obstacles: the government’s not having any money, the option the ejidatarios have of disincorporating land independently, through PROCEDE, and the lack of political will to get the laws changed. In order to improve any chances this policy might have of being applied, a number of Actions were proposed. Firstly, it was thought necessary to simplify the procedure allowing the town council (Cabildo) to disincorporate land for territorial reserves. Secondly, it was suggested that the expropriation law be reformed, so as to shorten the time taken to complete the procedure. Thirdly, it was considered possible for land to be acquired by associating the government with other social agents in order to develop land originally part of the ejidos. Fourthly, it would be necessary to obtain funds to make the expropriations. f) Facilitate the participation of organized civil society in the acquisition of cheap land In terms of its relative importance, this policy was the sixth of nine. The mark given was one for a policy of “moderate” importance, and if it were to be applied, this policy would help to make land use more rational, as it would make it possible to elaborate a diagnosis that was more accurate, both quantitatively and qualitatively; and offer land more cheaply. It would also make it easier to determine places fit for developing a settlement, as well as training and coordinating the associations. The participation of organized society might also reduce the number of irregular settlements without services. However, the “moderate” to “low” marks given to this policy’s Feasibility indicate that there are important Obstacles in the way of its getting applied. In particular, the problem arises of there being no mechanisms of real participation, as what happens is simply that one goes through the forms so as to “fulfil the legally stipulated requirements”. Participation is discouraged, for example, by the fact that the authorities do not follow up the suggestions made by the public, or do not follow them through and put them into effect, or report back on what happened to them. A final concern of those attending the Workshop was that if this policy were to be applied, it might encourage speculation with land prices. It was considered that to really facilitate the participation of society in the acquisition of cheap land it is necessary for the municipality to form land reserves and to simplify the administrative procedures for developing cheap land. It was proposed that the municipality be a facilitator, that encourages the association of social groups with private businesses and landowners, while at the same time subsidizing or lending its support to public housing

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organizations and private developers in exchange for urbanized lots that the municipality could then sell to recover the initial support given. Two mechanisms were proposed for developing formal settlements for the low income population. Firstly, that the municipality participate directly in the development of social interest housing projects, and secondly, that it be a mediator propitiating the creation of ejido real estate companies, with the support of PROCEDE. g) Create a State Institute of Land and Housing to formulate the policies of all the municipalities, ensure their continuity and monitor their application The creation of an Institute that would be independent of the executive power and not subject to the political changes every three years in local government and every six years in the state government, was considered to be the seventh most important policy for future application, of moderate importance, and its chances of being successfully applied, were rated as moderate to low. In favour of getting the Institute created is the fact that it could be supported by organizations that already exist, such as the Commission for the Regularization of Land Tenure (CORRETT), and programs that are already operating such as PROCEDE. The Institute would be useful in propitiating improved co-ordination between different municipalities, in determining expected demand more precisely, co-ordinating demands for land from all sectors and propitiating a more orderly expansion of the city. The main Obstacle is that no-one has thought of it, and if anyone has, they have not let it be known. In order to create the Institute, it was proposed that those in charge of municipal planning, in the metropolitan area and in the whole state of Jalisco, should be invited to a meeting to give their ideas of how it should be done, and having decided, they should change the State of Jalisco Housing Law. For this to work, it would be necessary for the state executive to have the political will to send the initiative to the state congress. Further, there would need to be guarantees that the funds for its creation and running were provided by the governments. It was proposed that the State Real Estate Company and Promoter of Public Interest Housing, IPROVIPE (from its initials in Spanish) be decentralized into 12 regional sub-committees (one per region) and 124 municipal committees of land and housing (one for each municipality) integrated into the Institute. It was further suggested that the Institute have a special department for the management of irregular settlements. h) Provide security of tenure to people living in all irregular settlements not located in dangerous places on ejido land Of the nine new policies proposed this is the last but one in terms of relative importance, and its chances of being applied are reckoned moderate to low. It is not immediately evident why different marks were given to the two similar policies intending to provide security of tenure to inhabitants of irregular settlements not living in areas subject to risk: the policy addressed to those living on privately owned land came third in the list of relative importance, and the policy addressed to those living on ejido land came eighth. In both cases the application of the policy would have the same benefits, such as reducing the number of irregular settlements created in dangerous areas. It was reckoned that providing them with security of tenure would allow residents to feel safe from the danger of being evicted. Two main Obstacles to the application of this policy could be seen: there is no information about where the areas exposed to risk are located, and it would be difficult to obtain such information in full as the people living in these areas distrust the authorities and are afraid of being evicted. It was mentioned by way of a warning that providing security of tenure to the inhabitants of irregular settlements leads to an increase in the irregular occupation of the land.

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For this policy to be applied, those attending the Workshop suggested a number of Actions to complement those already proposed for the third policy on the list. It would be necessary to create an Atlas of the metropolitan area showing where the irregular settlements at risk are located, classify them and determine the degree to which they are at risk. It was also recommended that the Urban Development Plans be published and distributed so the inhabitants of irregular settlements can find out what they contain. i) The management of irregular land as a valid option for gaining access to land Though this policy comes last on the list with regard to its relative importance, the benefit its application offers is that it could introduce order into the irregularity of land occupation, and guarantee that areas be set aside for infrastructure and public service installations thus avoiding future urban problems and conflicts between neighbours. Its Feasibility is low because the possibility arises of “approved” irregularity becoming the most popular option for obtaining land for housing. Not only would irregularity be tolerated, but irregular development would be encouraged by the fact that it would be harder to sanction illegal sellers, corruption would be propitiated and urban problems would be created for the future. As a matter of fact, irregular settlements have existed in Guadalajara and the other municipalities conurbated with the metropolitan area for over twenty or thirty years, and they already are the most sought after option for the low income population. For this policy to be applied it would be necessary to train the potential vendors, such as the ejidatarios, to follow minimum basic guidelines for dividing land into plots even if the sales were still illegal. Some of these guidelines are: the size of plots, the width of streets, and the setting aside without charge of areas where urban social services and infrastructure can be put in. In the case of irregular settlements that have already developed, it would be necessary for the municipality to intervene as fast as possible and elaborate a programme of intervention to set minimum guidelines and to define short and medium term policies of incorporation.

IV. CONCLUSIONS We believe that the method tried and tested in the Workshop in Guadalajara is of more than specialized interest, and could be applied in other areas of policymaking and in other places as well as to the urban planning of Jalisco, with very little need for modification. If we were to apply it again ourselves we might need to explain at greater length the distinction that was made between benefits accruing from the application of a policy and factors propitiating its successful application. The perception of future benefits was obviously one of the factors that would favour the application of a policy. However, those attending to the Workshop were only able to distinguish between the two with difficulty. The fact that a policy can be highly acceptable and yet virtually impossible to apply is one of the most important findings of the project; but we have also shown a way towards solving this problem, providing our own experience as an example of a method for building consensus. We can draw a number of conclusions from the Workshop that are directly relevant to the evaluation and the design of policies and practices of managing irregular settlements in Guadalajara; and we can also specify, on the basis of our experience, some of the ways in which a Workshop such as this, can improve the effectiveness of public policies. With regard to the first point, how our Workshop can help with the management of irregular settlements, the present paper provides an analysis of the multiple factors that need to be taken

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into account systematically for designing policies and applying them. It is clear from the Workshop experience that it is important for land policies to have consensus built into them from the design stage to application; our method was to evaluate their relative importance (“Priority”), and their chances of actually being applied (“Feasibility”). Knowing from the marks participants gave for Priority and Feasibility, it was possible to show the relative importance of each policy and the chances of successful application they had, from an optimistic and from a pessimistic point of view. One of the most important things learned from the joint participation in the Workshop of decision makers from different government offices (both urban and agrarian) and academics, is just how polarized their views on past and current policies and practices are. The same policy might be given high marks for its relative importance by some of those attending, and low marks by others; there might also be widely differing opinions on a policy’s Feasibility. This is illustrated by comparing the Optimistic and the Pessimistic views, where the Pessimistic view takes the divergences of opinion into account. Looking at the Pessimistic view, we became aware to our amazement that, according to the evaluation of the Workshop as a whole, not one of the new policies and practices proposed by those attending stood a chance of actually being applied. With regard to the second point, the contribution a Workshop such as ours can make to planning in general, it is to show how important dialogue is, and we have provided a method that shows the possibilities of systematic collaboration in the construction of real spaces for the discussion, analysis and evaluation of public policies addressing public matters that have great potential for conflict. The exercise reported in this paper demonstrates that it makes sense to choose participative schemes because they bring to the design of public policies a greater variety of information, about which there is more general agreement, and which is closer to reality. Also, valuable information was obtained about which changes should be introduced in order for policies, already being applied, to have more success. The changes suggested in this Workshop relate to the development of skills, institutional changes and modifications to the budget. The day to day practice of decision makers in government agencies responsible for designing policies to manage the irregularities of land tends to follow traditional planning schemes dominated by a hierarchical and authoritarian model, in which the opinion of experts defines standards, goals and priorities, and the failure of policies is attributed to a lack of political will or technical problems in the implementation of the policies. The Workshop reported on here reveals a much more complicated reality. It proves that there is a real problem of co-ordination between dependencies and a lack of general agreement in understanding and attending to the problem. This makes it necessary to promote schemes of negotiation and the building of consensus that will allow the different actors and organizations involved, to have common goals, share the same priorities and use the same application schemes, and this will increase the efficiency of the public policies. The exercise presented here shows how the willingness of the actors involved to engage in dialogue might come to be reflected in the quality of public policies designed. As far as one can tell from the experience of the Workshop, the use of a method of participative planning based on the building of consensus can be expected to: 1. Reduce the size of the gap separating public officials and decision makers from the knowledge produced in the academic world and the common knowledge society has, based on living experience. If other actors were to participate in Workshops like the one presented here, such as real estate developers, landlords, ejidatarios and

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inhabitants of irregular settlements, other kinds of expertise and empirical knowledge would be also incorporated. 2. Identify where there is a need to build consensus with regard to the relative importance and the Feasibility of public policies dealing with irregular settlements. 3. Make known the perceptions (as opposed to guarding a hidden agenda) of the different actors and interest groups, and the points of view that make them act in certain ways, encouraging or blocking the proper application of policies. 4. Construct a common knowledge of the contextual conditions that block the proper application of public policies relating to irregular settlements. 5. Promote the formation of groups or networks of people interested in the analysis, discussion, design and application, through consensus from start to finish, of public policies to manage irregular settlements, in this case, in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara. The design of policies to resolve urban problems is a highly conflictive process, but a participative method for designing public policies could help to breach the gap, between the great divergences of opinion between policy makers.

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V. BIBLIOGRAPHY Aubel, J. (2000). “Manual de Evaluación Participativa del Programa. Involucrando a los participantes del programa en el proceso de evaluación, Catholic Relief Services and Chile Survival Technical Support, (9 June 2006). Durand-Lasserve, A., Fernándes, E., Payne, G. and Smolka, M. (2002). “Secure Tenure for the Urban Poor”, CIVIS, 3, 1 – 8. ESF/N–AERUS (2001). International Workshop, Louvain and Brussels, Belgium, May, (25 May 2006). Fernandes, E. and Varley, A. (editores) (1998). Illegal Cities. Law and urban change in developing countries, Zed Books, Ltd., London and New York. Fausto Brito, A. (1999). “Inventario de asentamientos y fraccionamientos irregulares en la zona metropolitana de Guadalajara”, Technical Report, Instituto Libertad y Democracia, Lima. Fausto Brito, A. (2003). “El papel de los gobiernos locales en la regularización de asentamientos. Los recientes instrumentos legales y de gestión en el Área Metropolitana de Guadalajara (México)”, Proc., Second Urban Research Symposium of the World Bank on “Urban Development for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction”, 1 – 30, Washington, DC, 15 – 17 December. García Batiz, M. L. (2006). Planeación Participativa. La experiencia de la política ambiental en México, Plaza y Valdés Editores and Universidad de Guadalajara, México, DF. Innes, J. E. and Booher D. E. (2000). Collaborative Dialogue as a Policy Making Strategy, Institute of Urban & Regional Development, IURD Working Paper Series, University of California, Berkeley. Jiménez Huerta, E. R. (2000). El principio de la irregularidad. Mercado del suelo para vivienda en Aguascalientes, 1975 – 1998, Universidad de Guadalajara, Juan Pablos Editor, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Multidisciplinarios de Aguascalientes, México, DF. Jiménez Huerta, E R., Cruz Solís, H. and Rábago Anaya, J. (2003). “Un sistema de información geográfica para el análisis urbano: Atlas de Guadalajara.” Carta Económica Regional, 85, 10 – 19. Siembieda, W. (1996). “Looking for a place to live: Transforming the urban ejido.” Bulletin of Latin American Research, 1: (3), 371 – 385. Smolka, M. O. (2003). “Informality, urban poverty and land market prices.” Land Lines, 15 (1), Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge, MA. United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) (1996). An Urbanizing World, Global report on human settlements 1996, Oxford University Press, Oxford. World Bank (WB) and United Nations Development Programme (UND)/United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, Habitat, (UNCHS) (1999). Cities alliance for cities without slums. Action plan for moving slums. Upgrading to scale, Washington, DC.

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ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS CORETT

Comisión para la Regularización de la Tenencia de la Tierra Commission for the Regularization of Land Tenure CONACYT Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología National Council for Science and Technology ESF/N–AERUS European Science Foundation / Network–Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South GDP Gross Domestic Product IPROVIPE Inmobiliaria y Promotora de Vivienda de Interés Público del Estado Real Estate and Promoter of Social Interest Housing of the State (of Jalisco) PISO Programa de Incorporación de Suelo Social Programme for the Incorporation of Social Land PROCEDE Programa de Certificación de Derechos Ejidales y Titulación de Solares Urbanos Program of Certifying Ejido Rights and Giving Titles to Communal Land Designated for Urban Use PRODEUR Procuraduría de Desarrollo Urbano Public Prosecutor for Urban Development UNCHS United Nations Centre for Human Settlements UND United Nations Development Programme WB World Bank

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Irregular settlement in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, Mexico Figure 2. Metropolitan area of Guadalajara, Mexico LIST OF DIAGRAMS Diagram 1. Procedure for the development of the Workshop to evaluate past and future policies to manage irregular settlements LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Existing Policies and Practices and for the Management of Irregular Settlements 1990 – 2000 Table 2. Policies Proposed for the Future Table 3. Evaluation of Public Policies Applied During the Years 1990 – 2000 in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara Table 4. Evaluation of practices and policies proposed for future application in terms of their relative importance and chances of success 25

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Table 1A. Evaluation of Policies Proposed for Future Application (relative importance and chances of success) Table 2A. Evaluation of Current Policies and Practices (acceptance level and suggested contextual changes)

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ANNEX 1

OGANIZERS AND INSTITUTIONS TAKING PART General co-ordination of the Event, newspaper review and proposal of public policies for the present and the future Edith R. Jiménez Huerta, PhD Methodological design, elaboration of material for the Workshop, obtaining information and facilitating the Event Luisa García Bátiz, PhD Antonio Sánchez Bernal, PhD Technical assistants Ampelia Montoya Montoya, Architect Ian Carlos Reyes Díaz, Student Antonia Sánchez Martínez, Student Edgar D. Tovar García, Student Newspaper review assistants Gerardo Antonio Basulto Castillo, Student Perla Marisol González Cázares, Student Participants in the Workshop Municipal Dependencies: H. Ayuntamiento de Guadalajara H. Ayuntamiento de Zapopan H. Ayuntamiento de Tlaquepaque H. Ayuntamiento de Tonalá State of Jalisco Dependencies: Secretaría de Desarrollo Social del Estado (SEDEUR) Universidad de Guadalajara (U de G) Federal Dependencies in the State of Jalisco: Procuraduría Agraria (PA) Registro Agrario Nacional (RAN) Comisión para la Regularización de la Tenencia de la Tierra (CORETT) Procuraduría de Desarrollo Urbano (PRODEUR)

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INSTITUTIONS REPRESENTED AND POSITION IN THEM OF PARTICIPANTS Institution worked for H. Ayuntamiento de Guadalajara Departamento de Asentamientos Humanos Espontáneos, Obras Públicas Departamento de Fraccionamientos, Obras Públicas Programa de Regularización Municipal, Consejo de Colaboración Municipal de Guadalajara Programa de Regularización Municipal, Consejo de Colaboración Municipal de Guadalajara H. Ayuntamiento Zapopan Obras Públicas Zapopan Dirección Planeación del Desarrollo Territorial Departamento de Proyectos Especiales Dirección General de Inspección y Reglamentos Dirección de Reservas Territoriales y Regularización Dirección de Inspección y Reglamentos Verificación y Demoliciones Dirección General de Inspección y Reglamentos de Zapopan H. Ayuntamiento de Tlaquepaque Programa Municipal de Regularización en Terrenos Ejidales, Comisión Municipal de Regularización de Predios Dirección de Participación Ciudadana Tlaquepaque

Position held Head of Department (m.) Head of Department (f.) General Co-ordinator (m.) Operational Co-ordinator (m.)

Head (f.)

Inspector (f.) Director (m.) Inspector (f.) Verifier (m.) Head of Construction (m.) Co-ordinator of Program (m.) In charge of the office (standing in for the Director) (m.) Head (f.)

Oficina de Edificación y Urbanización, Subdirección de Desarrollo Urbano, Obras Públicas H. Ayuntamiento de Tonalá Dirección Jurídica Assigned Lawyer (m.) Dirección Jurídica Assistant ( ) Secretaría de Desarrollo Social del Estado Universidad de Guadalajara División de Economía Head (m.) Laboratorio de Nuevas Tecnologías Departamento de Geografía Head (m.) Universidad de Guadalajara Visiting teacher (f..) Centro de Estudios Metropolitanos 3 Masters students ( ) Centro Universitario de Arquitectura, Arte y Diseño Universidad de Guadalajara Urban consultant (m.) Procuraduría Agraria (PA) Departamento Operativo de la Procuraduría Agraria Head of Department (m.) Registro Agrario Nacional (Ran) Departamento Jurídico Head of Department (m.) Comisión para la Regularización de la Tenencia de la Tierra (CORETT) Subdelegación Administrativa Subdelegate (m.) Procuraduría de Desarrollo Urbano (Prodeur) Dirección de Capacitación Ciudadana Información y Difusión Director (m.)

[The original text in Spanish allows the gender of participants, in most cases, to be known; this information has been retained in the translation, but it was not considered advisable to translate the titles of the institutions represented.]

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ANNEX 2 List 1. Practices and Public Policies of Urban Land for Housing Applied in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, 1990 – 2000 8 Note: none of the policies described here has succeeded in ending or slowing down the development of irregular settlements, whether by itself or in combination with others in the table.

Policy

Objective

Evaluation

1.

Regularization of land tenure on ejido property

To deliver legally valid titles

Very widespread. Principally done through CORETT, encouraged more irregularity, created a culture of illegal access to land among low income population from 1970

2.

Regularization of land tenure on private property

To deliver legally valid titles

Not generalized. Processes have been long, and few cases have been resolved. Changes to Article 115 have opened new channels (for example: Decree 16,664)

To determine land uses and thereby avoid the development of irregular settlements

Very generalized. Has not achieved its objective because in Mexico the lineaments determined by planning are not respected

3.

4.

Planning

Construction of To offer a legal alternative to irregular housing, urbanizing land, settlements and the provision of credits by federal dependencies

Generalized since the seventies. Insufficient

5.

Laxity

To avoid social conflicts and to establish clientelist relations

Generalized since the start of the process of irregular development. Useful politically because it propitiates clientelist relations. Has sparked an explosive growth of irregularity

6.

Corruption

To obtain economic or political benefits for individuals or political groups through irregularity

Generalized since the sixties. Irregularity has benefited individuals, political groups and government officials. Has sparked an explosive growth of irregularity

To offer cheap land to be occupied and for the construction of housing by the low income population

Not generalized. There have not been enough land reserves in the right places, and they have been used for other purposes

7.

Creation of Territorial Reserves

8.

Forcible eviction

To insist on private property rights of land, to obtain high value land for oneself and to avoid human disasters

Not very generalized. Has been applied to specific cases. Leads to serious political problems

9.

Demolition

To make it difficult for those evicted to return to the same place

Always combined with forcible eviction. Creates even more serious problems.

To offer alternative housing to those evicted

Seldom used. Forcible removal and demolition are usually followed by relocation, but not always, as it is very expensive

10. Relocation of inhabitants

11. Imprisonment of illegal To slow the illegal sale of land developers

Very rarely applied

12. Management of irregular settlements

Very rarely applied. The intention is not to manage them but to have done with them

Slight control of irregular settlements (e.g: Respect for Construction Norms)

Source: Own elaboration on the basis of the newspaper review of El Informador from 1990 to 2000, and answers given by those attending the seminar, 2001. 8

All the written material handed out in the Workshop was on legal size paper (roughly foolscap); here it is presented slightly differently to fit a smaller size for printing from a word processor (roughly, A4).

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ANNEX 3 Form 1. Additional Policies Applied During the Decade

Add those important actions and policies which you consider to have been previously applied but were not included in the original list Policy

Objective

Evaluation

13.

14.

15.

16. …

Form 2. Evaluation Of The Actions And Policies Of Past Years (The Original Twelve And Those Added By The Groups) *

Team ___________ Policy Policies 1 to 12 and those added in the Workshop

Objective** Of each of the policies

Evaluation** Of each of the policies

Choose an option: Retain unaltered

b) Keep with modifications

c) Discard

Give the reasons for your choice _________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________ * A form like this was filled in for each of the policies originally listed and for each of those suggested by every group. ** The objectives and the evaluation of each policy may be consulted in Annex 2.

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Form 3. Evaluation of the Policies Proposed for the Future Those taking part used drawing pins to tack cards onto nine unicel panels attached to the walls (one panel per policy) after writing on the cards what “Actions” they saw would need to be taken, what “Advantages” there might be (things that would favor successful application)) and what “Obstacles” were likely to be encountered (things that would hinder successful application). They also marked their own opinion of the “Priority” (relative importance) of each policy and its “Feasibility” (chances of being successfully applied) on a scale of 1 to 10. Panel 1. Regularization of land tenure by means of direct negotiations between municipality and ejidatarios Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

Mark Priority

Feasibility

Panel 2. Guarantee land tenure to people in all irregular settlements not in dangerous places on ejido land Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

Mark Priority

Feasibility

Panel 3. Guarantee land tenure in all irregular settlements not located in dangerous or protected places on private property Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

Mark Priority

Feasibility

Panel 4. To facilitate the participation of organized civil society in obtaining cheap land Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

Mark Priority

Feasibility

Panel 5. To manage irregular settlements Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

Mark Priority

Feasibility

Panel 6. Systematic application of penalties to those who sell land or settle on land that presents a danger to the inhabitants or is in a protected area Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

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Mark Priority

Feasibility

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Fourth Urban Research Symposium 2007

Panel 7. Legislate for those in government to continue with policies and planning created before their administrative term Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

Mark Priority

Feasibility

Panel 8. To create a State Housing and Land Institute that will propose policies, give them continuity and oversee them in all the municipalities of Jalisco Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

Mark Priority

Feasibility

Panel 9. Apply the regulation for expropriating private and ejido land designated for Territorial Reserves in the Plans for Urban Development of the municipalities Actions (Use white cards)

Advantages (Use green cards)

Obstacles (Use red cards)

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Mark Priority

Feasibility

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Fourth Urban Research Symposium 2007

ANNEX 4 Table 1A. Policies Proposed for the Future with Actions Needing to be Taken POLICY

ACTION

1. To legislate for governments to • Create a non-government organization with the duty of monitoring the fulfillment of continue with policies and planning the requirement to maintain continuity from one administration to another created before the current • Modify the State Planning Law and thus make respect for continuity in the State administrative term Development Plans obligatory • Evaluate, at the end of each government term, the appropriateness of continuing with policies applied up till then • Support citizen participation to sustain the continuity of policies 2. Systematic punishment for those • Modify legislation: typify the offence and define the severity of the penalty who sell or settle in dangerous areas • Improve the executive instruments of dispositions already on the books • Form a technical and legal team responsible for prosecuting and sanctioning illegal vendors of land • Prevent illegal developers from operating so as to reduce the illegal sale of land • Punish ejidatarios selling areas of land illegally by expropriating the land • Include in the regulations certain minimum standards any irregular settlement must fulfill to be judged inhabitable • Make use of land designated as territorial reserves in municipal development plans • Increase vigilance • Train personnel how to apply sanctions • Once sanctioned, inhabitants should be given alternatives for acquiring cheap land formally • Get the local population to help with the detection of illegal vendors 3. To provide secure land tenure to Information is needed to: all inhabitants of irregular • Identify systematically and make an inventory of protected areas and those exposed settlements not located in risky or to danger, so as to be able to take preventative and corrective measures (vigilance, protected areas on private property forcible eviction, demolition, etc.) • Conduct studies that will classify irregular settlements and identify areas apt for human habitation Also necessary: • Increase vigilance on the part of authorities to protect areas exposed to risks • Relocate the population at risk 4. Regularizing land tenure by • Create spaces that will bring the municipal authorities and the ejidatarios closer so means of direct negotiations they can sign agreements between the municipality and • Lend technical support to the ejidatarios so they can define the polygons of their ejidatarios ejidos. • Train officials so they can accurately identify areas in a state of irregularity • Creation of a municipal office in charge of implementing a regularization programme • Exercise greater control through planning land use, roadways and territorial reserves • Design schemes of social participation • Prevent the need to regularize by promoting the association of ejidatarios and municipal authorities in order to generate social interest land on the basis of disincorporating ejido land by obtaining full ownership. Generate Social Objective settlements. • Get CORRETT involved in the regularization of ejido lands, and not leave it only to PROCEDE. • Guarantee that land is set aside according to the law by developers for urban amenities, at the time of regularizing land, for the provision of services and urban

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public service infrastructure. • Regularize settlements that have already been certified by PROCEDE. 5. To apply the regulation for expropriating private and ejido land designated in the Urban Development Plans of the municipalities as being for Territorial Reserves

• Prevent “invasions” of areas destined for uses other than housing • Acquire land albeit with subsidies from the government and elsewhere. This would diminish land speculation by owners. • Create territorial reserves in accordance with the needs of the municipality • Obtain economic resources with which to expropriate land • Simplification of administrative procedures. To achieve this, a reform of the functions of the Town Council making this the authority for disincorporating land • Reform the Expropriation Law, making the administrative procedures lighter so as to reduce the time taken by the expropriation process

• Simplify administrative procedures and create a land exchange 6. To facilitate the participation of organized civil society in the • Associate public organizations, private developers, and organized groups demanding land. Generate ejido real estate companies through PROCEDE . acquisition of cheap formal land • Deal between the municipality and developers: subsidies and permits in exchange for urbanized lots • Generation of information: call on the public to elaborate a census of land and housing in the municipality • Generate “social interest” housing projects • Encourage participation by informing the public of the advantages and disadvantages of acquiring land illegally 7. To create a State of Jalisco • Obtain and publish information about the Institute of Land and Housing through a Institute of Land and Housing to Forum for planners make proposals, provide continuity • Make this proposal a statute, by modifying the State Housing Law and monitor the application of the • Direct resources to the creation and running of the Institute policies of all municipalities (should be independent of the • Decentralize IPROVIPE into 12 regional sub-committees and 124 municipal committees, of land and housing executive power, as in the estate of • Creation of an organization specifically in charge of irregular growth, to monitor and Guanajuato) caution the public • Try to find the political will to get the state executive to send the initiative of creating a new Institute, to the local Congress • Nothing is required because the IPROVIPE already exists

8. To guarantee to people security • Create a municipal regulation providing norms for the legal activities of an irregular of tenure for land in all irregular settlement settlements on ejido land that are • Generate information about risk in the city. Classify different types of risk with not located in dangerous places relative degrees of danger, and define sources of danger (e.g. mudslides, high tension electric cables, etc.) • Inform the public of places that are apt for housing development • Once identified, monitor places at risk to make sure they are not used for human habitation 9. The management of irregular land as a valid alternative way of providing access to land for housing

• Mark minimum obligatory standards for illegal developers, such as providing a

minimum portion for roadways and having a minimum size of plots, and making free areas available for services and urban social infrastructure • As soon as an irregular settlement starts up, elaborate an immediate urban plan to determine short term and medium term integration policies • Give priority to those with few resources • Determine the real demand for land and create “quick” alternatives to meet it

Source: Own elaboration on the basis of answers given by those attending the seminar, 2001.

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Table 2A. Evaluation of current policies and practices (Level of acceptance and changes suggested for successful application) EVALUATION SUGGESTED CHANGES High level of Acceptance 1. Creation of Territorial Reserves Retain

• Institutional changes: Try to find incentives for the Local Government to incorporate urbanized,

legally obtained, land for low income population. For example, through the appropriation of land on the grounds of public utility. To guarantee a sufficient supply of land to cover and foresee demand for social land. To democratize land reserves. To promote the association of the three levels of government with investors. To channel resources into the production of detailed studies that will help to anticipate demand. To promote the use of vacant lots. To promote the creation of a multidisciplinary organization with all three levels of government included. • Budget: Manage resources adequately. The sine qua non for achieving this aim is to have enough resources.

2. Construction of housing, urbanizing land and providing credits from federal organizations Retain

• Institutional changes: Transfer the management of federal land and housing programs to the states

and municipalities. Make the urbanizing of land, the construction of rental accommodation and selfbuilding the principal activities and not the construction of completed housing. Make housing programs more flexible. • Development of municipal capacities: Train local officials to improve the way land and housing policies work. • Budget: Increase the amount spent on land and housing, and legislate for fixed a percentage of the federal budget to go into this area.

3. Regularization of land tenure on ejido property Retain

• Institutional changes: Give the municipality more powers, and make regularization procedures more transparent in all the institutions involved. Create a municipal authority to be in charge of regularization. Improve co-ordination between CORETT and the municipalities and the state government, and have an integrated policy. Subordinate the actions taken by CORETT, PROCEDE and PISO to those of the municipalities, and thus get the federal institutions to respect the development plans of the municipalities. To facilitate regularization procedures and set space and time limits to programs. • Training: Train municipal officials to conduct regularization.

4. Regularization of land tenure on private property Retain

• Institutional changes: Give the municipalities greater powers. Get the municipality to support selfprocessing and regularization of land tenure in this type of settlement. Eliminate having a Partial Plan as a prerequisite for regularizing land tenure; improve and clarify the contents of Decree 16,664. One example of simplification would be not requiring the same procedures for regularization as those that must be followed in new settlements (as in Tlaquepaque). • Training: Train local officials to apply Decree 16,664 and get them to train the neighbourhood organizations. Also train the municipal police to conduct inspections and let the inhabitants know the procedure for regularization and how to organize themselves. • Budget: Transfer resources form the state government to the municipalities for them to conduct the regularization.

5. Planning Retain

• Institutional changes: Respect for municipal and state planning. Improved co-ordination between the

three levels of government. Plan the growth of the city long term, build roads and prevent land speculation. Encourage popular participation in the revision of Partial Plans. • Development of local capacities: Incorporate ejidatarios and the owners of vacant lots into the planning process. Make popular consultation more widespread in the design of Partial Plans. Let the municipal authority do a follow-up of the suggestions and proposals made through popular consultations, and inform the public of results.

6. Management of irregular settlements Retain • Institutional changes: Determine that the Local Council co-ordinate all information,

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monitor the land within the limits of its jurisdiction, and sanction offenders. Implement works management. 9 Apply the Law of Urban Development. Institute a permanent campaign against irregularity. Get the population to check with the municipality before obtaining specific plots. • Development of local skills: Inspect and monitor urban land in the municipality and apply sanctions to those who develop irregular land. • Budget: Channel more resources for the municipalities to be able to conduct more thorough inspections and so they can develop land to be offered to the low income population and the population in general. Merely acceptable 1. Imprisonment of illegal developers Continue with • Institutional changes: If the law is to be applied to them, first it is necessary to increase modifications vigilance and so detect illegal developers. Adapt regulations so PRODEUR and the municipalities can support the police (ministerio público) in the formulation of charges (averiguación previa) and bring the illegal developers to appear before the corresponding authority. Promote changes to the Law of Urban Development that will increase penalties for illegal developers. 2. Forcible eviction Continue with • Institutional changes: Generalize eviction as a “preventative” measure to stop irregularity. modifications Make the paperwork prior to taking such actions easier, especially for cases where the population is at risk. 3. Relocation of inhabitants Continue with • Institutional changes: Adapt regulations to allow for the population to be relocated. modifications • Budget: In order to apply this measure it is necessary to have territorial reserves and financial resources. Rejected 1. Demolition Continue with modifications (Rejected in its present form) 2. Laxity End



Institutional changes: Make it easier for the municipal authority to demolish housing and take the action necessary to stop the population from returning to the same place they were forcibly evicted from. Apply the Law to avoid irregular occupation of zones where inhabitants would be at risk.



Development of skills: Promote the organization of citizens to avoid permissiveness.

3. Corruption End (one team offered no opinion)



Institutional changes: Propitiate citizen awareness. Denounce in public those officials who practise it. Modify the Penal Code to stiffen penalties for promoters and public officials who propitiate corruption. • Development of skills: Promote the organization of citizens to prevent corruption.

Source: Own elaboration on the basis of answers given by those attending the seminar in 2001.

9

“Works management” (controles de obra) is a mechanism, designed by local officials, to make it possible for irregular settlements to comply with some of the minimum indications such as leaving land for communal use or public services, or making sure all lots have access to the street. Another of its aims is to get the inhabitants of irregular settlements to pay taxes for different concepts, as they do not usually pay tax either for the land or for buildings.

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