Conflicts - GSD Cantinho do Céu Studio in São Paulo
The upgrading program is now in its second year of construction and struggles with many problems. Cantinho do Céu is an extremely contested site for the metropolis. From the perspective of resource management and environmental advocacy, the urbanization of the Billings watershed was a tragedy. Large areas of Atlantic rainforest in the watershed were lost. Its cleaning effect diminished. Illegal urbanization contaminated the reservoir to a degree of uselessness. For the environmental agency, the city of Cantinho do Céu is the most blatant symbol for this degradation. If it were to the environmentalists, Cantinho do Céu would be razed and replaced with rainforest seedlings.
In contrast, the mission of the São Paulo Housing Agency is to provide decent housing for its ten million inhabitants. Their interest is to develop Cantinho do Céu into a livable city. These two missions are on a colliding path with the inhabitants of Cantinho do Céu caught in the middle. Furthermore, old legislation written for a non-urbanized watershed creates serious hindrances for the improvement of the existing urbanization. The housing agency walks a fine line between city build-out, legal correctness and resource protection. They chose to involve the Graduate School of Design to receive ideas of how to reconcile the diverging interests.
These are some of the major conflicts in detail:
50 m Setback - Per environmental legislation a 50m zone free of urbanization has to be created from the reservoir’s edge. The law was invoked to allow the development of an ecological zone along water bodies. In the case of Cantinho do Céu hundreds of houses needed to be demolished along the seven kilometer shoreline of an artificial water body. Its inhabitants would have been to be relocated in replacement housing somewhere else on the peninsula. Obviously the plan meets resistance in the population. The agency currently seeks for alternatives. In the moment a compromise is offered: not all houses in the 50m wide zone have to be removed, when one of the most erosion prone areas in Cantinho do Céu will be cleared from urbanization. The new plan has the advantage that less houses in Cantinho do Céu will have to be removed. A new ecological park in the cleared area is meant to satisfy the demands of the environmentalists. However the inhabitants of the areas to be cleared are unhappy and show resistance.
Sewage - Per current law no sewage can be treated inside the watershed of the Billings reservoir. The law was made before the watershed was urbanized and before sewage treatment was considered to be an effective solution. It is planned to collect the sewage of Cantinho do Céu and pump it over 70km to the next large sewage treatment plant. The disadvantages are clear. Pumps have to keep running day and night to convey the sewage of 70,000 persons. Much of it will be lost through leaky pipes on the way and contaminate the ground water below. Water will be lost from the watershed.
Stormwater – all stormwater leaving the favela should be cleaned before entering the reservoir. It is expected that Cantinho do Céu’s stormwater will carry various types of contaminants ranging from nitrogen and phosphorus from households to heavy metals from cars and commercial operations. The agency is currently seeking for alternative cleaning methods like treatment wetlands and bioswales. Their experience is very limited with these systems. If no viable alternative can be found, polluted stormwater will still contaminate the reservoir and the housing agency will be held responsible.
Triggered by these conflicts, SEHAB wants to enter a new era of favela upgrading where ecology and sustainability play a bigger role. The agency wants to leave resource wasting solutions of traditional engineering behind and is very much interested in a more integrated approach where alternative infrastructure is socially beneficial implemented. The conflicted site of Cantinho do Céu is considered to be the ideal testing ground for this new approach.