Territorial legislation and municipal finance strengthening to support family settlement at the regional level

Abstract

The territorial legislation is an outstanding intervention field in order to promote family regional settlement and integration, as a necessary condition to trigger a sustainable regional development. Considering the revision of the Land, Territorial Ordinance and Urbanism Act, currently under way in Portugal - linked together with the revision of the Juridical Regime of Territorial Management Instruments, the Juridical Regime of Urbanization and Edification, municipal master plans and respective regulations, other legislation that falls on territory, and the new Cadastral Law -, this article presents the assumptions, methodology, outcomes and conclusions of a research work focused on a proposal to reformulate the municipal development charges applied, as a case study, to the municipality of Bragança (Portugal). As the current crisis framework strongly impacts on municipal finance, this research aims at contributing to endow municipalities with financing-efficient instruments, thus reinforcing their ability to fight for the interests of their populations in a sustained way, namely in what concerns the provision of high standards of family life quality, thus contributing to the proper development of regional economies. This new assessment of municipal development charges is stressed in the conclusions and recommendations. It indeed contributes to clear up the origins and applications of funds aimed at development activities; to quantify the values charged to developers/promoters/builders, according to the benefits they extract from public infrastructure services; and assure an increased fairness and equity in the distribution of development costs and benefits among the population within a certain municipality, and among different municipalities. This increased fairness and equity, together with the proposed reinforcement of municipal economic and financial sustainability will, certainly, be decisive for family settlement at the regional level and, therefore, for a better consolidation of the regional development.