Brazil will cede federal land and buildings for social housing

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian Union intends to offer unoccupied lands and public buildings for social housing auctions in the coming months. It will be up to the city halls to make the bids and select the families to be benefited.

That is the premise of the Aproxima Program, launched on June 7 by the Ministries of Regional Development (MDR) and Economy. The initiative will be one of the Yellow Green House Program branches.

During the launch, an ordinance calling for municipalities and the Federal District to indicate federal lands to be used in the program was released.

Besides social housing, the program will allow commercial projects to be executed on the same land or building, which are intended to develop the occupied area according to the federal government.

Thus, a commercial housing development may have a shopping mall on the first floor, parking lots on parts of the land, and service establishments.

According to the executive secretary of the Ministry of Regional Development, Helder Melillo, the Aproxima Program intends to simultaneously combat the housing deficit, promote urban development, and increase the housing supply in city centers.

“The [Program] Aproxima has the great merit of facing some central challenges of our housing and urban development policy. We face the enormous challenge of making available this land, which is well located, most of the time in central areas of large cities already endowed with urban infrastructure, urban services, and a closer location to work,” explained Melillo.

Also present at the program’s launch, the Secretary of Coordination and Governance of the Union’s Patrimony (SPU), Fabiana Rodopoulos, said that the agency’s activities are being expanded. In addition to selling deactivated or rarely used federal lots, SPU intends to exercise a social function.

“The SPU is the largest real estate agency in Brazil, with about 700,000 properties. So why not look at the social function that the agency has? For the social provision of housing, especially for the low-income population,” he declared.

Another advantage of the program, according to the MDR’s executive secretary, is the economy of resources because the Union will not spend anything to cede the properties for auctions.

“The Union will provide the real estate in return. There are no resources from the Union’s General Budget. It is a program that does not compete [in terms of funds] with other programs. And this is the great innovation of the Aproxima Program,” highlighted Melillo.

With information from Agência Brasil

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