| Resumo: | In this communication are reported the assumptions, methodology, outcomes andconclusions of a research carried out within the scope of the revision of the Land,Territorial Ordinance and Urbanism Act, currently under way in Portugal. This is adeep revision, and it points out the importance of the economic and financialsustainability of urban development operations for municipalities.Land values rise as a result of territorial planning decisions. Thus a planned publicintervention is required in order to assure these surplus values are allocated for thepopulationŽs social interest. Despite the existence of different kinds of land policies,the fiscal-based ones affect the most the market and land uses, and may substantiallyinfluence planning goalsŽ achievement. Land taxation aims at assuring a source ofincome to public administration; redistributing welfare so to grant land its socialfunction; giving back to society the land surplus values that accrue from planningdecisions and public investments; and increasing the provision of land for urbandevelopment.In order to recover part of the surplus values engendered by urban planning decisions,herein is proposed a new territorial management instrument, applied at the Municipallevel. It consists in charging a 20% fee on the land value increase (surplus-value) thataccrues from concrete building capacity/m2 assigned by plans to specific urbaninterventions. This fee will, later on, be used by the municipality on behalf of socialpurposes. The current proposal is applied, as a case study, to the Urban Development Plan of the Planning Unit 11 of the municipality of Lagoa, located in the Algarve(Portugal). The methodology pursued in the current study consists in the computationof the building capacity/m2, and of the surplus values and corresponding 20% fee thataccrue from the establishment of that plan, to be charged to promoters and builders, inorder to recover part of their unearned increments. This innovative territorialmanagement instrument strengthens municipalŽs economic and financialsustainability, clears up the origins and applications of municipal funds, and ensuresthat the surplus values engendered by plans are pointed to social purposes and not tospecific private interests.The application of this urban fee may be easily extended to other municipalities, as itis founded on information and methodologies that stand inter-municipal comparisons.Besides, this kind of study supports municipal decisions on both urban developmentand economic-financial issues, in an integrated and sustainable way.
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