ABSTRACT

In a country marked by inequality, Brazilian legal frameworks guide territorial planning instruments, especially Municipal Masterplans, to improve cities development respecting a democratic elaboration process and taking heed of the social function of the city and urban property. Thus having the promotion of socio-spatial equity as a main goal. This research aims to understand the elaboration process and the scope of the guidelines of the new Masterplan of Recife (PDR-2020), in terms of the right to housing as a basic dimension of the right to the city. An approach based on the deductive method was employed, in order to follow the activities on institutional planning instances and to identify conflicts in the dispute between representative interests of democratic and market models of urban planning. The review of the conceptual and normative framework guides the investigation of the instruments established in the Executive Bill 28/2018 (PDR-2020), based on their compliance with the principles mentioned above and their nature (redistributive, democratizing). The results show conflicts and contradictions in the debates and in the application of legal instruments. The research contributes to understand asymmetries in the responses to the interests of hegemonic and non-hegemonic actors and their impact on the achievement of the right to housing and the right to the city.

Keywords:
Right to housing; Master plan; urban instruments; Democratic management, Recife