La primera ley urbanística moderna fue promulgada durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial el 17 de agosto de 1942 y suscrita por Dino Grandi, presidente de la Cámara del Fascio") (Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni).[5].
Esta ley contemplaba, en escalón jerárquico superior, los planes directores territoriales de coordinación") que limitaban la libertad de planificación de los municipios, que tenían la obligación de redactar un plan regulador general a desarrollar mediante planes reguladores particularizados") de aplicación en los sectores de homogeneidad constructiva. En esta ley Benito Mussolini atribuye a los propietarios del derecho a urbanizar"), agrupados a través de un consorcio que los represente. Es el antecedente de las Juntas de Compensación").
La ley francesa de 15 de junio de 1943, la Ley sobre Planes de Ordenación de Ciudades, de Bélgica") de 23 de octubre de 1946, la Ley de Planeamiento Urbano y Rural de Inglaterra") de 6 de junio de 1947 (Town and Country Planning Act, de 1947 ) y la Ley sobre el Planeamiento del Territorio Nacional de Polonia") de 3 de enero de 1945.[6].
Land Law of May 12, 1956
The first Land Law was promoted by the architect Pedro Bidagor, around whom Spanish urban planning policy moved for three decades and despite the fact that he never came into harmony with the General Directorate of Local Administration, tutor and guide of the City Councils, nor did the Minister of the Interior support his policy: [7].
This is an advanced law that was born without the necessary political support and without an adequate professional network to develop it in practice. Bidagor, head of a section in the General Directorate of Architecture in the Ministry of the Interior, even with the support of the Head of State, was unable to convince the municipalists of the General Directorate of Local Administration.[8].
The Land and Urban Planning Law of 1956 elevates planning to a fundamental element of the new system. The ius aedificandi is deeply limited, attempting to regulate the use of land in accordance with the social function of the property. It configures the proprietary powers over the land according to its urban classification"), constituting a legal status") of the land, in such a way that those limitations and duties it implies define the normal content of the property according to its nature and, therefore, do not give rise to compensation.
Urban planning, therefore, becomes an integral competence of the Administration, without whose planning foresight and authorization no urbanization or construction is possible. But at the same time, it reserves all the capital gains generated by urban income to the owners without any social participation, consecrating the maximum level of urban capitalism.
A first regulation of the Urban Land Regime was established, with a division into classes:.
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- Urban land: land that is located in areas consolidated by buildings, or has a series of urban services (vehicle access, water and sewage supply and electricity supply).
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- Urban reserve land: susceptible to urbanization through the corresponding partial plans.
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- Rustic land: the rest of the municipal territory, assigned a direct use of 1m³ of buildable area") for every 5m² of surface (0.2m³/m²).
Each of these classes would have certain determinations established. Thus:.
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- The Urban Land or the Urban Reserve Land is determined as: roads and squares, parks and gardens, facilities, or private buildings.
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- Rustic land: is categorized as common or protected. In addition, there are certain regulations that link construction to the agricultural system or that limit the segregation of plots.
A series of planning figures appear:
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- National plan. Establishes the main guidelines for urban planning of the national territory.
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- Provincial plan. Establishes the urban planning guidelines within a province.
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- General municipal or regional planning plan. It could encompass several homogeneous municipalities. Establishes the urban planning guidelines within its area of action. It is the only plan that classifies the soil, determining the physical limits between the different classes established in the Soil Regime. Therefore, the concept of urban classification appears.") It is the only plan that was ever carried out.
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- Special plan. Order historical-artistic ensembles, special sectors, etc.
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- Partial plan. Defines in detail the qualification and use of land in a sector.
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- Urbanization project. Details and develops the infrastructure works and services of a partial plan.
To manage the development of planning, four action systems are used. Two can only be carried out by the administration, these being expropriation (the administration expropriates and urbanizes) and cooperation (only applicable in areas with rapid growth, the administration urbanizes at the expense of the initial owners, who nevertheless maintain their rights. One that can be carried out either by administration or by individuals, called Compensation, which through the creation of a new legal personality called a compensation board, urbanizes and jointly distributes burdens and benefits. And finally one that can be carried out by individuals, the Road Transfer, in which each owner transfers to the city council the land necessary to build roads, parks and gardens, leaving his plots reduced on the initial plot but ready to build.
The law introduces a land valuation regime for urban reasons (in expropriations), in correspondence with the differentiation in the classification of the various lands. Thus, the urban land was assigned the commercial value or venal value, being appraised according to market prices; to the urban reserve land, urbanistic value and expectant value, which tried to capture the expectations of urbanization and building, finally assigning to the rural land") an initial value, which only took into account its agricultural yields, without including any urban use.
This system, which allows the unequal appropriation of the urban capital gains generated by the community in favor of some owners and not others, was corrected only in specific urban operations, through the principle of fair distribution of benefits and burdens) of planning, through the reparcelling technique that allows the unification of all the plots of a polygon and then proceed to their new division, compensating all the owners equally.
The confusing wording of the 1956 Land Law, caused by the variety of influences and techniques it incorporated, caused its rejection for years. But as the old Municipal Ordinances were replaced by the new General Planning Plans, for the preparation of which the law granted the Administration the broadest of discretions, it was widely abused. Without subjection to mandatory urban planning standards that would subject the ignorance and laziness of architects, officials and politicians and the pressure of speculators "Speculation (economy)"), the irreparable destruction of the town centers and expansions of many Spanish cities, as well as enormous coastal areas, began.
Regarding the effects of this new law, Fernando de Terán's opinion is pessimistic, having in his favor the creation of awareness about urban planning. For Emilio Larrodera, building development exceeds the norm, but this does not represent a failure of the law, but rather a failure of its application.
Framed in the development of the National Plan, Law 52/1962, of July 21, on the valuation of land subject to expropriation in the execution of housing and urban planning plans, was approved, and later the Regulation of Forced Building and Municipal Registry of Plots (D 635/1964) and the Regulation of reparcellations of land affected by Urban Planning plans, (RD 1006/1966).
The Law of May 2, 1975
The 1956 Law was subject to a first reform by Law 19/1975 that gave rise to the Consolidated Text of both laws (RD 1346/1976), said norm was subject to development by the Planning Regulation (RD 2159/1978), the Urban Management Regulation (RD 3288/1978) and the Urban Discipline Regulation (RD 2187/1978). The Regulation of Forced Building and Municipal Registration of Plots (D 635/1964) remained in force.
The reform affected the land regime, redefining land classes and evolving the determinations towards the concept of land qualification.
The soil classes with respect to the new regime partially correspond to the previous ones. Urban land is still called the same, although its definition has been tweaked. The previous urban reserve land is divided into programmed developable land (that which must be urbanized immediately) and unscheduled developable land (which is reserved for future development through Urban Action Programs). The most substantial modification lies in the non-developable land regime. The definition of the new classes is as follows:
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- Urban land: It is that which has road access, water supply, water evacuation and electricity supply, or that which is included in areas consolidated by construction in at least half of its surface. That land that has a partial plan even if it is not urbanized, will also be urban land.
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- Scheduled developable land: It is carried out according to the plan's temporal forecasts, which are usually one or two four-year periods.
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- Unscheduled developable land: Planned for future needs. It can be compared to the urban reserve land of the law of 56. It is transformed into developable land programmed with an Urban Action Program and is developed according to urban needs with a Partial Plan.
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- Non-developable land: Eliminates the minimum right to use "Use (urban planning)") that the previous law recognized.
Within the categories of urban and developable land, it increased the duties of owners to develop and build and expanded land transfers for public purposes. In developable land, it imposed the transfer of 10% of the average use. It can be said that the community's participation in urban capital gains increased and the application of the principle of sharing benefits and burdens beyond reparcelling operations was intensified.
In the same way that in the previous law each class of soil had certain determinations, in the new law each class has a qualification.
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- Urban land or Scheduled developable land can be residential land, industrial land, residential land or general systems.