Un modelo, tres enfoques. Las aportaciones metodológicas de los Planes Directores Urbanísticos para la ordenación de las áreas urbanas en las Comarcas Centrales de Cataluña.

Resumen

In the late seventies, after the recovery of democratic institutions in Spain, the planning authority is transferred to the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (Generalitat). Soon after, the incorporation of the Regional policy of 1983 (LPT 1983) allows the development of supra-municipal plans at different scales. During this period the municipal urban planning became a symbol of democratic claim. In contrast, regional planning remains distant from society. Regional plans of the LPT 1983 were postponed until the late nineties. This lack of supra-local planning in Catalonia (and Spain) defines two main problems. First, there is territory broadly managed by fragmented local plans. This is due to the division of the legal system in a law that regulates the regional planning (LPT 1983) and another law that regulates urbanism (TRLUC 2005). The second problem, regarding the lack of supra-local planning, is the opposition to the current processes of urbanization, in which the main vector is the integration of the territory. These processes of metropolization are not new phenomena. However, despite all the theoretical contributions, the plurimunicipal coordination is still very difficult to be executed through operative planning. Here lies the opportunity of the new Supra-local urban plans (PDU). The PDU are instruments intermediate between regional and local plans, implemented as a frame of reference and coordination for the municipalities included in their boundary. Like other regions and countries in the European context, the Government of Catalonia relocates the spatial planning at the regional level, defining a new MODEL of planning and administrative organization to manage its policies. Thus, the Generalitat provides PDU the role of link between the regional and the local levels to overcome the linear hierarchy of planning determined by the LPT 1983. For guiding the planners, graphic and scope guidelines are established for the PDU. However, in practice, the PDU have different APPROACHES to the methodological options and content, showing a potential flexibility to adapt its scope to the uniqueness of each of the territories addressed. The overall objective of this research is to define the innovation and the instrumental specificity of PDU. For this purpose we analyse three pioneers cases: the PDU of Bages, the PDU of Conca d'Òdena and the PDU of Vic. Drafted simultaneously, these plans address the management of three urban areas in the same region, the Central Counties. The first specific objective is, first, to define the uniqueness of the PDU by an individual study of the cases and, secondly, to generalize its scope (in the region of Central Counties) through the comparative analysis of cases. As a second objective we intend to define the role of the PDU within the framework of supra-local planning from two perspectives, one from the planning and one from the project. In particular, we analyse the three cases selected in relation to the Regional Plan for the Central Counties, which together constitute a single territorial project. According to the mentioned objectives, we verified that the PDU are not typeable plans. The instrumental innovation of the PDU lies not only in the flexibility of its contents, but also in the articulation of tested tools from other plans, both urban and regional. In this sense, the efficiency of the system results from the interaction not only of planning but also of the project in two scales, the urban areas and the region. The PDU transcend the rigid segmentation of a legal framework that splits urbanism from the territory.