Institutional aspects of housing production in Brazil (1964-2004)

Abstract

Paper presented at the XXXIII IAHS World Congress on Housing, 27-30 September 2005,"Transforming Housing Environments through Design", University of Pretoria.

This paper presents the impact and changes in institutional aspects on housing production in Brazil. It covers the period (1964-2004) when there was an institutionalized housing policy - centralized by the National Housing Bank (BNH) which managed a specific financing system – through a period characterized by the absence of a comprehensive housing policy, up to the legal and institutional framework under which housing construction industry operates nowadays, and financing perspectives. It analyses how housing financing has operated with lack of a specific institutional framework in the period after the BNH extinction, 1986. What have been the results and in which terms the low performance of housing construction industry contributed to increase urban housing deficit. In the latest period, 1995-2004, it covers in detail the advances in legislation, the process of representation of the housing construction sector and it’s relationship with the public sector. The new framework operating in a less regulatory environment and the initiatives of this specific economic sector to tackle financing, the recent goals, new possibilities and the quality of the relationship of the private and public agents. It also brings a qualified mapping of the representative institutions, how they operate and influence public policies and the initiatives of this economic sector to develop new legislation. Finally there is an overview of the results and programs of the private and the public sector working together in order to enable improvements in housing construction, to increase quality guarantees and cost reduction, oriented to access alternative finance resources.