Tools for land-use planning
Land-use planning requires legal, administrative, investment, and incentive tools, among others. A wide variety of methods is used in land-use planning. The Participatory and Negotiated Territorial Development (PNTD) and Green Negotiated Territorial Development (GreeNTD) approaches of the FAO’s Land and Water Division are based on experiences in the field of participatory land-use planning and the concerted management of natural resources. Some examples of tools are:
- The land-use plans are technical regulatory instruments that determine optimal uses for the land based on its limitations and potentialities. It also promotes the optimization of human settlement systems, the organization of people flows and the use of resources. Citizens are a fundamental part of the formulation, execution and monitoring of the plans and actions employed in land-use planning. The most important phases of this process are:
1. Preparatory
1. Preparatory
Compuesta por a) la identificación de la demanda social y política; b) la formalización del proceso de OT; c) la evaluación de disponibilidad de recursos financieros y generación de alianzas estratégicas para el desarrollo de la OT; y d) la elaboración, priorización y viabilizarían de Proyecto de Inversión Pública de OT
2. Comprehensive assessment of the territory and its environment
2. Comprehensive assessment of the territory and its environment
Esta etapa consiste en el análisis y procesamiento de la información de, por ejemplo, una Zonificación Ecológica Económica, y de estudios complementarios para formular el Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial (POT). A continuación se realiza el modelo actual del territorio el análisis de fortalezas, oportunidades, debilidades y amenazas (FODA)
3. Territorial forecast
3. Territorial forecast
Consiste en la proyección de la situación actual a una situación futura, teniendo en cuenta las tendencias de las variables relacionadas con el desarrollo local (social, económico y ambiental) y la evolución del uso y la ocupación del suelo. Después, a partir del análisis de escenarios, y con la participación de los actores sociales, se decide la visión de desarrollo territorial deseado o el “modelo territorial objetivo”
4. Formulation
4. Formulation
Se formula el “modelo territorial objetivo (deseado)”, los objetivos estratégicos y específicos, así como el conjunto de acciones y proyectos organizados en los planes de usos y ocupación del territorio. En la formulación del POT se deben contemplar de manera continua dos principios básicos: transversalidad e integralidad.
5. Implementation
5. Implementation
La implementación del POT debe ser ejecutada buscando un permanente proceso de fortalecimiento de la institucionalidad y de las sociedades locales. Comprende (a) la aprobación del POT a cargo de la entidad pública relevante (por ejemplo Consejo Municipal); (b) la institucionalización del POT, a través de, por ejemplo, establecimiento de concejos municipales, contratación de responsables del proceso de OT dentro del área de planificación de la entidad pública responsable, o la creación de una Unidad de OT; y (c) la ejecución del POT, que suele tener una duración de 10 años
6. Monitoring, assessment and updating
6. Monitoring, assessment and updating
Comprende el seguimiento y control del POT. El proceso de cumplimiento de los elementos establecidos en el POT puede estar fortalecido por otras instancias surgidas desde la sociedad civil, como comités de seguimiento u otras, comité de vigilancia, consejos consultivos y otros actores sociales e institucionales en el municipio.
The purpose of zoning, as carried out for rural land-use planning, is to separate areas with similar sets of potentials and constraints for development. Specific programmes can then be formulated to provide the most effective support to each zone, and can guide public and private investments.
- Agro-ecological zoning (AEZ), as applied in FAO studies, defines zones based on combinations of soil, landform and climatic characteristics. Each zone has a similar combination of constraints and potentials for land use, and serves as a focus for the targeting of recommendations designed to improve the existing land-use situation, either through increasing production or by limiting land degradation.
- Ecological Economic Zoning (EEZ): EEZ provides technical information and a referential framework for promoting and guiding public and private investments. It allows for alternative plans to be defined for the use of ecological, economic and socially acceptable resources, as well as the assignment of resources, incentives and policies go promote them. It is created based on the assessment of land aptitude and socioeconomic variables; the identification of land use conflicts and overlapping usage rights; an analysis of the human settlement system (territorial organization); and the identification of risk and vulnerable areas.
- Natural disaster prevention: The mechanisms used to control future risks include risk maps and hazard maps, in addition to LUP. These mechanisms must be mutually, permanently reinforced through regulations and methods, which ensure that the implications of all investment projects will be analyzed in terms of the new risks they present, and that relevant methods will be designed to maintain risk at a socially accepted level.
- Cadaster: This shows the area, value and property or other basis of land use or occupation, which was originally compiled for tax purposes. Although many countries no longer have this type of land tax, in practical terms, the cadaster has two other equally important purposes: to provide an accurate description and identification of specific plots and to serve as a permanent record of land rights. A modern cadaster normally consists of a series of large-scale maps and plans with their corresponding records.