São Paulo plans 167 parks, but creates 11 in nine years – 03/24/2023 – Cotidiano

Ambitious in its intention to protect green areas and offer its inhabitants more leisure spaces, the city of São Paulo proposed to create 167 parks when it approved the Master Plan of 2014, which is the law that seeks to organize the growth of the municipality.

Almost ten years later, the capital gained 11, of which 5 were among those originally planned in the plan — the most famous of which is Parque Augusta, in the central region of the city.

Now, in the proposed revision of the plan submitted by the City Hall to the City Council, 146 parks are being proposed, most of which were already in the 2014 plan. If implemented, they will be added to the 111 that already exist.

In the Chamber, the opposition to Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) criticizes what they understand to be a reduction in the number of parks foreseen in the plan.

“The item of environmental preservation is impaired, prioritizing construction to guarantee a parking space in densely populated areas, close to public transport routes”, said councilor Silvia Ferraro (PSOL).

The Nunes administration claims that there was no reduction and that, instead, it updated the list, replacing projects that were unfeasible. Thus, according to the municipal administration, the review will result in more areas included than excluded.

The City Hall also says it has more than doubled the resources allocated to maintaining parks in the city this year. The amount available in the Budget increased from BRL 158 million in 2022 to BRL 335 million in 2023, according to the Municipal Secretariat for Green and the Environment. The amounts are used in works, maintenance, clearing, tree management and surveillance.

For experts consulted by Sheet, the problem is not in the adjustment made in the revision in relation to the number proposed in the initial planning, but in the difficulty that the administrations found over time to put the proposals into practice.

“Doubling the budget allocation from one year to the next is good, but it is still little because we are running after to keep up with a number of parks that almost doubled in the city in less than two decades: there were about 50 and now for more than 100”, says Fernando Pieroni, director-president of Instituto Semeia, whose purpose is to articulate partnerships between the public and private sectors for environmental conservation.

One way out to boost the creation of parks, according to Pieroni, is to resort to the participation of companies and non-governmental organizations.

“The public-private partnership has room to be boosted [na gestão e implantação de parques em São Paulo]. We talk a lot about lack of resources. Partnerships can leverage resources. But the partnership is not just budgetary. It is a question of flexibility, agility and vocation. Sometimes, the public sector is unable to execute according to the rules for contracting services”, says Pieroni.

According to biologist Juliana Baladelli Ribeiro, part of the delay in the process of creating parks stems from the lack of understanding by managers and the population itself about how green areas in metropolises can reduce costs for the municipality in the medium term.

“A large swimming pool, which is only used part of the year and generates maintenance costs, can in some cases be replaced by parks on the banks of rivers, which avoid flooding and irregular occupation of these areas, lakes and other solutions based on nature”, he says. she, who is project manager for cities based on nature at Fundação Grupo Boticário.

Ribeiro explains that the challenge for cities like São Paulo, made waterproof due to the paving of roads and squares, is to reduce the speed with which water, on rainy days, reaches the floodplains of rivers and other lower areas.

Reducing flooding is one of the main functions from the point of view of saving resources generated by green areas in the city, but it is not the only benefit.

Among the positive impacts in other areas are the improvement in quality of life and the reduction of diseases in the population, since parks can contribute to the fight against sedentary lifestyle and stress.

“The foundation conducted a study with the City of Curitiba and found that for every R$1 invested [em áreas verdes], there is R$ 12 in return”, commented Ribeiro. “Is it expensive to make a park? Yes. But floods and full hospitals are more expensive.”

New areas were included in the review, says City Hall

The management of Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) states that, in the bill for the Intermediate Review of the Master Plan, the City Hall is proposing 146 parks in the city. Of these, 13 are new areas now included in this revision, and the rest concern parks already foreseen in the 2014 text and not yet implemented.

“Of the total parks planned in 2014, only four areas were, in fact, excluded because their implementation was considered unfeasible. Therefore, the city hall reaffirms that the balance of proposed parks is positive since there are more areas included than excluded .”

In addition, the city hall claims to have resolved inconsistencies in the old list, “which did not lead to the exclusion of green areas”, says the note from the Municipal Secretariat for Green and the Environment.

The folder claims to have updated the list of parks whose creation was expected in 2014 and which were implemented, thus removing these units from the list of proposed parks. It also says that it included some planned parks as other categories of green areas, in addition to correcting parks that appeared to be duplicated.

President of the Urban, Metropolitan and Environmental Policy Committee of the City Council, councilor Rubens Nunes (União Brasil) is critical of the increase in expenses for the implementation and management of new parks.

“The city has a relevant number of parks, which supply the environmental and urban needs. But, at the same time, the administration of parks has a financial impact, and it is essential to have a balance with the Budget.”

According to the Municipal Secretariat for Green and the Environment, in the last five years, R$ 42 million were invested in the implementation of new green areas.

Currently, according to the agency, there are 111 municipal parks and at least five more will be inaugurated by the end of 2024, with the linear Aristocrata and Água Podre later this year.