Design Process
Types of land: urban, developable, non-developable
Land is subject to numerous legal conditions regarding urban planning and construction regulations, but the most important of these is its urban classification, which distinguishes between types of land: urban, developable, non-developable.
A classification is a large-scale distinction that divides the different zones of a municipality: those where construction is permitted and ready, those where construction could be permitted in the future but are not yet ready because street urbanization is incomplete, and those reserved for green areas, rural zones, or similar uses where construction will never be permitted.
In today’s article, we will analyze each of these different zones, reviewing their development over the years and explaining in detail what we can or cannot do on each of them and why.
Urban planning
Every urban reality, whether a city or a town, is governed by a series of parameters of certain complexity. Urban planning identifies the social, economic, and cultural characteristics of space—a space that has been formed throughout history and to which each generation contributes new stages of construction, materialized in new buildings and renovations.
A collective construction, such as that of any urban area, must have a project that goes beyond the design of buildings and infrastructure—it is the collective city project. Such a project must be materialized and specified in its formulation and concrete management, of which we cannot forget its political component.
Likewise, we are discussing a long-term project, so the regulatory legal framework must be sufficiently flexible to allow readjustment over time, incorporating factors of uncertainty and opportunity throughout the process.
For this reason, the administration has generated a regulatory legal framework to which urban action must conform and which aims to synthesize the multiple implications of the urban phenomenon. We can therefore affirm that urban planning must know how to interpret the historical legacy that the city represents and provide guidelines for its sustainable development toward a future without an expiration date.
Difference between classification and zoning
Urban planning regulates the use of land by its owners, whether private individuals or public institutions, with the objective of ensuring coherence in urban development across the territory.
The division of land into different classes or types of land is what is understood as urban classification, while the assignment of land to a particular zone is what is understood as urban zoning and refers to its use and building possibilities.
Classification
The urban planning scheme of any municipality must propose, based on its objectives and design criteria, the division of land into the basic categories of types of land: urban, developable, non-developable.
These concepts have refined their meaning in successive legal texts that have defined them. The Spanish Land Law of 1956 expressed them as urban land, urban reserve land, and rural land. The current designation of types of land: urban, developable, non-developable comes from the Land Law of 1975, with the respective subdivisions of each category that we will detail later.
Zoning
Zonings are specific characteristics of a plot of land in relation to its building coefficient and the specific regulations that apply to it: permitted uses, alignments, or maximum height, etc. All land in the municipality must belong to one of the planned land regimes and be included in a zoning designation that establishes its purpose and incompatibilities within the proposed planning.
Let us examine some examples to understand the urban planning logic behind them, although this is not the subject of debate in this article. For instance, open spaces are differentiated through two basic zonings: roadways and green zones or urban parks. This second zoning entails greater protection of the integrity of the space, with the objective of guaranteeing minimum green space in the urban area.
Another example is the use of the facilities zoning in urban planning, which aims to facilitate the implementation of certain uses that the logic of the land market makes difficult.
The existing city: urban land
We can say that land classified as urban is, in fact, the space of the existing city. It is the area in which land ownership has a superior status, in the sense of recognition of more rights and a lower proportion of obligations. For this reason, urban planning legislation has established conditions for this delimitation.
The first criterion for classifying land as urban is that it has the basic urban services characteristic of this class of land—vehicular access, water, sewerage, and electricity.
Thus, the availability of basic services and facilities represents one of the first checks we must perform before purchasing land, since land that does not have vehicular access or water or electricity supply will likely have future charges that the buyer must pay when the municipality decides to urbanize the street.
Furthermore, this process must have occurred in accordance with legally established procedures, so an illegally urbanized area should not be directly considered urban land. To determine whether our land is urbanized in conformity with planning, we must verify that it does not present any irregularities. Otherwise, it would be necessary to apply a Special Plan, an urban planning instrument that allows the regularization of irregularities in a territorial area from a specific sector.
The second criterion establishes two-thirds of ‘areas consolidated by building’ as the minimum necessary for land to be considered urban, because many urban areas may have, despite being undoubtedly urban, significant urbanization deficits. When we speak of building consolidation, we refer to land adjacent to an urban fabric, never isolated land, to ensure that it is firm and stable urban land.
Within the urban land classification, we find two subgroups: consolidated urban land and non-consolidated urban land, which we will develop below.
Consolidated urban land
The subcategory of consolidated urban land includes all those plots under the consideration of building plot, which we can define as land suitable for building and urbanized in accordance with urban planning, which allows the granting of an immediate license and whose construction does not involve the transfer of land.
There is another term called building plot through accessory works, in this case referring to land that has pending alignment and grade marking, but which falls within the classification of consolidated urban land.
However, we must be aware that land can lose its status as consolidated urban land if the general urban planning subjects it to urban transformation actions. Therefore, it is essential to gather all information about the impacts on our future building plot, precisely to avoid regulations that limit construction possibilities or land with outstanding debts that must be included in the purchase price.
Non-consolidated urban land
The non-consolidated urban land, also called rural nucleus, is land that has not yet achieved a definitive configuration of the system of public open spaces and parceled spaces. It may be areas of land that have never been fully incorporated into urban land planning, such as peripheral areas and urban voids, or areas incorporated into the city that have become obsolete and require a new urbanization process, as is the case with former large industries or disused railway spaces.
In these cases, the municipal urban planning scheme indicates that a new configuration is necessary, with the establishment of new street layouts and the definition of new building areas and their building capacities. The new planning must therefore entail a substantial change in the land’s parcel structure. The planning establishes the most suitable areas to carry out such a process under the name of ‘urban improvement sectors.’
These urbanization works may include interior land reform, its renovation, the acquisition of public facilities, or its re-urbanization. All these actions will be defined by some development instrument, such as a Special Plan, so it will depend on the approval of this plan for it to be considered suitable for construction and to obtain a building permit.
For all these reasons, purchasing land classified as non-consolidated urban land may result in a stagnation of our future housing project while awaiting a positive urban planning resolution.
The extension of the city: developable land
The developable land regime is a regime that, unlike consolidated urban land and non-developable land, has a transitory character, since it is applied by the plan to land with rural characteristics and maintains validity until the moment when this land has been transformed into urban land, at which point its regime becomes that of urban land. The delimitation of developable land areas by planning instruments aims to designate this still-rural land susceptible to being incorporated into the city’s urban area through an urbanization process, such as a Partial Plan or Reparcelation Project.
There are two subgroups within the developable land category: sectored or non-sectored developable land. The difference depends on considering it land that must be subject to urbanization or land that may be subject to urbanization, as we will develop in the following two sections of the article.
Sectored developable land
The sectored developable land, also called programmed developable land or land delimited in sectors, is land that the urban planning scheme designates as being of interest to the city. For this reason, the plan divides it into sectors to be subject to urbanization actions.
Thus, it is land that must be subject to urbanization, meaning that its urbanization is included in the municipal plan’s action program, which entails a formal commitment by the municipality to initiate a transformation process during a designated period. In this way, the municipality is obliged to process any land urbanization proposal promoted by other agents that conforms to the regulations established by the general plan.
Non-sectored developable land
The non-sectored developable land, also called non-programmed developable land or land not delimited in sectors, is land for which the urban planning scheme indicates only its suitability for urbanization if certain circumstances occur.
Therefore, there is no commitment to action by the municipality, although the possibility of promoting its urbanization is not excluded. However, in that case, the municipality could act with opportunity criteria, set complementary conditions, and conduct competitions among different agents for its urbanization.
Likewise, non-sectored developable land could become sectored through the revision of the municipal plan’s action program.
Non-developable land and the preservation of rural space
The non-developable land, also called unsuitable land or rural land, constitutes a type of land that the urban planning scheme excludes from possible urbanization because it is land not appropriate for sustainable urban development, either due to its physical characteristics or its location. For example, it may be land reserved for the development of infrastructure or public services.
However, there is the possibility of legally building single-family homes on it linked to agricultural or livestock operations, provided they are large plots to avoid excessive building density.
Protected non-developable land
Within this group, there is a specific type that has some form of specific protection, due to its landscape, natural, cultural, or productive value, called protected non-developable land. In this case, the urban planning scheme excludes it from any possibility of urbanization because it considers that it must be preserved entirely.
How do I check which types of land: urban, developable, non-developable a plot corresponds to?
First, we must become aware of and take advantage of the tools we have access to through web platforms, as they can make our lives easier with a single click. At the Spanish level, we can review the types of land: urban, developable, or non-developable of any plot that interests us through the Electronic Office of the Cadastre. In Catalonia, there is the Urban Map of Catalonia (MUC) tool, provided by the Generalitat, and its equivalent in Madrid, the Geographic Information System of Urbanism, provided by the Community of Madrid.
Finally, we have the Barcelona Urban Information Portal (PIU), generated by the Barcelona City Council. All of them include an interactive map with the classification of all land in the territory to which they refer.
Second, we can consult directly with the City Council of the municipality in which we are interested, with the objective of learning about municipal regulations, possible easements or impacts, as well as the urban planning that regulates the land. As we mentioned earlier, one of the most important things will be to know whether the plot is located on an urbanized street to which all services reach.
The next step would be to evaluate the land information through a simple note requested from the Property Registry. It will show the name of the plot’s owner, as well as any outstanding debts. This is a procedure that one can do in person and that always involves a minimum payment depending on the municipality, but for which there are numerous intermediary companies that can do it for us.
Finally, the most advisable approach is to contact an architect before purchasing the plot, so that they can perform all necessary checks at the urban planning and legal level and accompany you on a site visit for on-site evaluation before initiating purchase negotiations.