Justice releases housing construction in water spring areas in SP

The measure generates controversy - there is a housing deficit in the city, but the environment and population could be harmed

Buffalo Park

On August 18, the Court released the construction of low-income housing in Parque dos Búfalos, a green area that protects 13 springs from the Billings Dam, in the south of São Paulo. 193 residential buildings will be built at the site, where around 14 thousand people are expected to live.

The park is not a conservation unit: the area of ​​830 thousand square meters of spring is used by the surrounding residents for recreational purposes. In the past, the site was a buffalo farm, but in the early 1990s, the owner removed the animals from the area, which began to be used by the neighborhood. About 30% of the land is privately owned and the rest belongs to the city. In 2012, Mayor Kassab decreed the area as a public utility, paving the way for transforming the private area into a park, but the current mayor overturned the decree.

The idea is to use the land to create buildings for the federal government's “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” housing program, which is a partner of the state government in this project. The buildings will occupy 190,000 square meters of area and the rest (about 70% of the area), promises the city, will be reserved for the creation of a municipal park.

However, the surrounding residents want the entire land to become a conservation unit. To preserve the area, allied with the Public Ministry of SP, they proposed action to suspend the works of the “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” program. In February, the court ordered the work to be stopped.

The city hall and the construction company Emccamp appealed. Unanimously, the judges of the São Paulo Court of Justice last week accepted the appeal and released the works. The decision came out on Tuesday (18).

Housing deficit and environment

The city has a housing deficit of 230 thousand homes. In 2012, during the municipal elections, then-candidate Fernando Haddad (PT) pledged to enable the construction of 55,000 popular homes during his term. The agenda to increase access to affordable housing in São Paulo is one of the flagships of Haddad's administration. In the case of Parque dos Búfalos, environmentalists complain that meeting the target is at the expense of the environment.

In a statement, the NGO SOS Mata Atlântica claims that the work further weakens the Billings dam, which "has been an alternative to the water crisis affecting the city."



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