{"id":48381,"date":"2018-11-12T12:51:52","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T15:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=48381"},"modified":"2020-08-07T14:03:11","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T17:03:11","slug":"community-land-trust-workshops-part-1-community-workshop-methodology-and-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=48381","title":{"rendered":"Favela CLT Workshops, Part 1: Community Workshop, Methodology and Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

I<\/em>n Rio de Janeiro, from August 23 to 27, 2018,\u00a0Catalytic Communities<\/a>* (CatComm) organized a\u00a0series of workshops<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Community Land Trusts<\/a>\u00a0(CLTs), together with a special delegation from the\u00a0Ca\u00f1o Mart\u00edn Pe\u00f1a CLT based in San Juan, Puerto Rico<\/a>.\u00a0The workshops were designed to discuss this urban planning tool and consider its\u00a0potential applicability in Brazilian favelas<\/a>. Over the five days of workshops, 130 individuals participated, including fifty community leaders and residents of Rio\u2019s favelas.\u00a0The workshops were organized in partnership with the Rio de Janeiro State Public Defender\u2019s Office, the Pastoral de Favelas, the Rio de Janeiro Architecture and Urbanism Council (CAU), the Laboratory for Studies of Transformations in Brazilian Urban Law (LEDUB), the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (LILP), and the Global Land Alliance.<\/em><\/p>\n

The first event reported on below, was the Community Workshop, which took place on August 23 at the Rio Public Defender’s Office Foundation School<\/a> (FESUDEPERJ), specifically featuring residents and community leaders from favelas in Rio and community leaders from favelas in Puerto Rico. On August 24, at the same venue, the Legislative Workshop was held for technical advisors and members of civil society\u2014lawyers, housing movements, favela organizations, architects, engineers, and urban planners\u2014interested in discussing the legal possibilities for applying the CLT<\/a> model in Brazil. On August 25 and 26, local community workshops were hosted in favelas in collaboration with residents\u2014the first in\u00a0Barrinha<\/a>\u00a0and the second in Vidigal<\/a>. On August 27, a morning gathering was held to present the CLT model to Brazilian authorities, as well as representatives of public agencies and political parties. In the afternoon, the Puerto Rican delegation presented their final conclusions to the general public at the headquarters of the Rio de Janeiro Architecture and Urbanism Council<\/a> (CAU).<\/em><\/p>\n

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On the first day of the workshop series on August 23, residents and leaders from Rio\u2019s favelas met with a delegation from the favelas of the\u00a0Ca\u00f1o Mart\u00edn Pe\u00f1a<\/a>,\u00a0represented by four individuals: community leaders Mario N\u00fa\u00f1ez and Evelyn Qui\u00f1ones from the Group of Eight Communities (G8), which leads local organizing, and Lyvia Rodr\u00edguez and Alejandro Cott\u00e9 from the ENLACE Project, a public program that was created to facilitate the establishment of the Community Land Trust (CLT) and support community upgrading over 25 years. The ENLACE Project is effectively a public local development agency working on behalf of residents of the eight Ca\u00f1o communities.<\/p>\n

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Over the course of the day, facilitators applied methodologies developed over years of community organizing that ultimately led to the establishment of the CLT in San Juan. According to this methodology, when discussing land tenure security, it is important to contrast specific models and methods of obtaining land tenure security only after discussing the local context. This discussion begins by (1) assessing the community\u2019s qualities, (2) documenting perceived or actual threats facing the community, and finally (3) debating the precise reasons for which residents seek land titles.<\/p>\n

To develop an effective instrument for guaranteeing tenure security, these three factors must be taken into consideration in order to (1) develop a solution that preserves (and even strengthens) the community\u2019s existing qualities; (2) guarantees protection against threats that the community is currently experiencing or believes it will likely face in the future; and (3) ensures that the real (and not theoretical) motives for desiring land titles are those that are addressed with the acquisition of titles.<\/p>\n

On the morning of August 23, the representatives from fourteen communities in Rio and one from Minas Gerais State that were present at the event discussed these qualities, hopes, and threats with regard to their communities and land tenure security. In total, there were 39 participants from Rocinha<\/a>, Vidigal<\/a>, Quilombo do Sacop\u00e3<\/a>, Banc\u00e1rios, Indiana<\/a>, Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>, Rio das Pedras<\/a>, Prazeres<\/a>, Vila Oper\u00e1ria<\/a> (Nova Igua\u00e7u), the Shangri-l\u00e1 Cooperative<\/a>, Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, R\u00e1dio Sonda<\/a>, Caet\u00e9s, and Caminho dos Cabuis, in addition to the Eliana Silva Occupation in Belo Horizonte.<\/p>\n

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Participants split up into groups of ten so that each could describe\u00a0the positive features<\/a> of their respective communities and the main threats facing residents. Next, a representative from each group presented the results in a group activity involving all participants.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The activity highlighted a great variety of\u00a0positive characteristics<\/a>, showcasing the tremendous diversity of local realities in Rio’s favelas. These included: easy access to local commerce\/strong local commerce<\/a>; good mobility\/proximity to public transit\/easy-to-access location; diversity\/cultural diversity<\/a>; cultural vocation;\u00a0proximity to nature<\/a>,\u00a0which promotes quality of life; unity; non-violence; community organizing<\/a> and resident resistance; food production; access to natural springs<\/a>; trust in local leadership; community size; dignity; coexistence; use of streets<\/a>; familiar; and persistence\/struggle, among others.<\/p>\n

As far as threats, the same issues were repeated more frequently, often linked to market or government forces: processes of gentrification\/the arrival of outsiders, real estate speculation, property repossession\/expropriation, increased cost of living, actions by municipal<\/a>\/state\/federal authorities, areas of environmental risk\/landslide risk, drug trafficking\/militias, lack of mobility, psychological terror inflicted upon residents, lack of building regulations, and lack of mechanisms to ensure residents’ permanence.<\/p>\n

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The second part of the morning activity sought to consider why<\/em> residents seek\u00a0land tenure security<\/a>. To this end, in groups, participants discussed the reasons for which residents of their respective communities would or would not like land titles and regularization. Consultations conducted prior to the workshops identified examples of residents and local organizations that resist land titling\u2014a fact that is rarely taken into account given the frequent assumption that land regularization and land tenure security are synonymous. Indeed, as we discovered with the experience of the Ca\u00f1o Mart\u00edn Pe\u00f1a in Puerto Rico, sometimes regularization increases land tenure insecurity<\/em>. For this reason, the communities of the Ca\u00f1o found the CLT to be a safer model of regularization.<\/p>\n

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The results from the second part of this activity demonstrated this inherent conflict. Residents would like to receive land titles and carry out land regularization since they believe it to be a tool to\u00a0guarantee permanence<\/a> and expand rights. Those who do not want land titles and land regularization warned that these processes increase the cost of living or encourage speculation and consequently reduce residents’ capacity to remain in their respective communities.<\/p>\n

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Subsequently, presentations were delivered by\u00a0Tarcyla Fidalgo<\/a>, lawyer and urban planner from the Laboratory for Studies of Transformations in Brazilian Urban Law<\/a> (LEDUB) at the Institute of Urban and Regional Research and Planning (IPPUR) of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ); Theresa Williamson<\/a>, urban planner and executive director of Catalytic Communities; and Lyvia Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, urban planner from the Ca\u00f1o Mart\u00edn Pe\u00f1a CLT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fidalgo presented the main strategies and tools for land regularization available today in Brazil in order to contextualize the current limitations and scope of these tools and to create a dialogue with the results presented in the previous group dynamics. The tool presented for land rights on public land is the special concession of use for housing purposes<\/a>; and on private land is\u00a0adverse possession<\/a> (either individual or collective<\/a>). Fidalgo also presented a new tool to enable full titling on public land known as land tenure legitimation, as established by President Michel Temer’s recent land regularization law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Shortly after, Williamson briefly presented the\u00a0Community Land Trust<\/a> (CLT) model, speaking about the emergence of CLTs in the context of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s and the expansion and variety of the model’s applications since then. As she explained, research in the U.S. has shown that the CLT is the most robust model for promoting affordable housing\u2014capable of surviving both economic highs and lows when such pressures would normally reduce the chances of low-income citizens being able to remain in their homes. Next, Williamson discussed the\u00a0context of evictions and gentrification in Rio’s favelas<\/a>\u00a0over the past ten years, associated with the process of real estate speculation in these areas. Williamson connected these issues to the need for a tool that brings together security of permanence, the strengthening of community organizing, and local development<\/a>. Williamson then presented the basic principles <\/span>of CLTs, relating them to the real needs of Rio’s favelas in order to conceive of a CLT model that applies to the Brazilian reality.<\/p>\n

The universal aspects of the Community Land Trust model are:<\/strong><\/p>\n