MASTER PLAN REVIEW OF JUAZEIRO DO NORTE (CE) IN PARTIDO DOS TRABALHADORES GOVERNMENT (2009-2012): OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

With the City Statute (Federal Law 10.257 of 2001), cities gained a set of instruments for the elaboration of urban development policy, to be implemented at the local level through the Participative Master Plans. That law started to oblige cities with more than twenty thousand inhabitants and/or members of metropolitan regions to prepare Master Plans and carry out their review at least every ten years. The municipality of Juazeiro do Norte-CE (case study in question) prepared for the first time its Master Plan for Urban Development in the management (1997-2000) of Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT), and an attempt to revise the Master Plan took place at management (2009-2012) of Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). Not starting from a naive view – on that master plans are solutions for cities - this article intends to highlight, through semi-structured interviews, the perception of those who were tasked with revising that plan, what were the main actions and the main obstacles. The main problems encountered were the population's disbelief with public policies, the slowness in the bidding process, the lack of municipal resources, the absence of technical qualifications, the proximity to the electoral period, the diminished political will, the lack of management priority for reviewing the plan and social inequalities. However, there was more progress, from the pedagogical point of view, for the people involved in the process, than in the external results. We can mention some of them: preparation of the methodological proposal for reviewing the Master Plan, composition and training of the municipal technical team; recomposition and training of the municipal council of the Master Plan.