A happy ending to one of the disputes over the appropriation of urban space in São Paulo: the land that will house Augusta Park is finally becoming a public and common asset. After decades of impasse, the social, environmental, and cultural function of the city's last central woodland has prevailed over the right of the developers owning the land to exploit it by building high-rises.
The agreement signed [on August 10] between the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Municipal Government, and the developers Cyrela and Setin to make Augusta Park a public asset officializes a solution that urban planners and activists have for years pointed out as viable, fair, and worthy: the companies will donate the land to the City in exchange for the transfer of development rights (TDR), taking into account the site's current zoning, which is currently restricted as a Special Environmental Protection Zone (ZEPAM).
This urban planning tool established in the city's Master Plan – Transfer of Development Rights – grants owners of areas designated for environmental preservation or cultural heritage the right to use or sell their unused development potential on other lots in the city – where, according to the Plan, building density can be increased.
In addition to receiving a Transfer Certificate of approximately 3,360 m² from the city (corresponding to 10% of the 24,000 m² area, multiplied by an incentive factor of 1.4, according to the transfer rule applied in a ZEPAM), the companies have also committed to paying R$ 10 million. Of this total, R$ 6 million will go toward park construction works and R$ 4 million in cash will go to a fund for park maintenance, the renovation of municipal early childhood education schools, and the implementation of a green corridor connecting Augusta Park to the neighboring Roosevelt Square.
This compensation is the result of an agreement regarding the fines that the companies were forced to pay following the lawsuits they faced for illegally closing off the area.
History
The struggle for a public park on this land, open for everyone to enjoy, dates back to the late 1970s, when the former Des Oiseaux school, which also housed the Equipe college preparatory school, was demolished under the cover of darkness, leaving a vacant lot. The garden was already being used by local residents, which catalyzed the movement to officially designate the space as a public park.
In 2013, the dispute intensified with the sale of the site to two developers, the imminent risk of approval for a major real estate project, and the illegal closure of the land by its new owners. At that moment, a movement of individuals, groups, and collectives from across the city grew, opposing the development and advocating for a park.
Faced with growing grassroots resistance for the public transformation of the area and the legalization of the dispute, the Public Prosecutor's Office proposed a Conduct Adjustment Agreement (TAC) to the city government and the developers. Under this agreement, the city would use funds embezzled by former mayor Paulo Maluf – which were being repatriated to Brazil from foreign banks – to pay for the expropriation of the land and compensate the owners. This solution was considered controversial even by the activists involved in the struggle for Augusta Park, as it reinforced a vicious cycle of private appropriation of public resources: illicitly diverted public money that, once recovered, would be handed over to private entities to secure a public space. Under the agreement officialized today, those funds will instead be used to build CEUs (Unified Educational Centers), ETECs (Technical Schools), and daycare centers in São Paulo's outskirts.
A second attempt was proposed by former mayor João Dória, who offered to cede a valuable municipal plot next to the Pinheiros Expressway in exchange for the Augusta site. This proposal met with strong resistance from both Pinheiros residents and Augusta Park supporters, who argued that the city would not only be transferring the problem from one neighborhood to another, but also giving away a valuable public asset – essentially to compensate the developers.
The argument of the park's advocates – who by then had also begun working with other movements to establish parks across the city, under the Rede Parques (Park Network) alliance – was that the socio-environmental function of the site, designated as a Special Environmental Protection Zone in both the Master Plan and by law (since the City Council had already passed a bill designating the area as a park), should prevail over the owners' profit expectations for the land.
In times of privatizations and the city's future being subjected solely to the logic of investor profitability, the victory of Augusta Park stands as a symbol of grassroots mobilization in support of public urban space, asserting the right to the city and a balanced environment for its population. It also fuels the struggles of other ongoing movements in the city working toward the same goal.
The work continues: activists, collectives, and residents from across the city are already organizing to advocate for the implementation of the community-led park design and to make Augusta Park a laboratory for a new form of public management for parks and other facilities: neither private nor state-run, but community-managed.
Learn About the Strategies of the Augusta Park Movement (2014-2018)
1. Cultural and media actions, occupations to amplify the cause
Various local and city-wide street actions, talks, dialogues, cultural activities, festivals, daily occupations, and the summer 2015 occupation.
2. Reopening of the park
An injunction to open the park, filed by the movement's lawyers, which culminated in the temporary opening of the park's woodland for a few months in 2015. Legal action against the illegal closure was taken through the São Paulo Public Prosecutor's Office.
3. Preventing the approval of the illegal development
Research and technical reports prepared by the movement regarding the illegalities of the proposed development were filed to exert pressure on the Municipal Secretariat for Greenery and the Environment (SVMA), SEL (Secretariat of Licensing), the Municipal Council for the Preservation of Historical, Cultural, and Environmental Heritage (Conpresp), the São Paulo Public Prosecutor's Office, and various other city departments and agencies.
4. Zoning change to ZEPAM in the Master Plan
Lobbying and massive participation in the discussion and drafting of the City's Master Plan and the Land Use and Occupation Law to ensure Augusta Park was classified as a ZEPAM, in addition to several other green areas advocated for by the Rede Novos Parques (New Parks Network) alliance.
5. Annulment of grandfathered development rights (Direito de Protocolo)
Study, analysis, and mapping of administrative irregularities concerning the *Direito de Protocolo* for Augusta Park. Together with the Rede Novos Parques, via the Caxingui Linear Park case, pressure was exerted on the Attorney General's Office and the São Paulo Public Prosecutor's Office to eliminate this grandfathering loophole in the city. A temporary injunction was granted to suspend the grandfathering article, with the final ruling still pending. The legal uncertainty surrounding these rights was crucial in pressuring the developers to accept the TDR to resolve the conflict.
6. Application of fines
At the request and pressure of the Augusta Park Movement, a public civil action was filed by the São Paulo Public Prosecutor's Office (4th PJ for Public and Social Heritage) against the developers for the illegal closure of Augusta Park, seeking compensation for the city. Under the current agreement, the companies will pay R$ 10 million in damages to settle this public civil action.
7. Transfer of Development Rights
Since 2014, the Augusta Park Movement has been studying TDR with urban planners and research labs across the city as a fair and dignified solution to the conflict.
8. Collective community design
Since 2014, the Augusta Park Movement has been gathering the wishes and needs of activists and local residents to draft the vision and design for the park. This work resulted in a Process Synthesis Report.
9. Community management
Since 2014, the Augusta Park Movement has been discussing new ways of thinking about the management of Augusta Park. The lectures and panels from the 2017 Augusta Park Forum are all available online.
* Augusto Aneas is an architect and urban planner who graduated from FAUUSP in 2008. Since 2014, Aneas has worked as an activist and strategist for the Augusta Park Movement and the Rede Novos Parques.
This article was originally published on Raquel Rolnik's blog on August 10, 2018.
This article was written by Raquel Rolnik e Augusto Aneas. The translation is powered by AI.
