There was a BEACH in the MIDDLE of the way: Speculative retention of urban land in coastal areas of Natal submitted to the height control of ZET 3
planning and management. coastal areas. urban voids. height control.
In the current process of production of cities, under the aegis of the capital, the localization is one of the main motivations for territorial disputes, highlighting the conflicts between its agents. In coastal areas, these conflicts occur between social groups constituted by traditional populations that claim the genesis of their occupation and civil construction and tourism agents, especially those that want to explore economically its landscape potential and its locational advantages. The districts of Areia Preta, Praia do Meio and Santos Reis, located in the Eastern Administrative Region of Natal and inserted in the Special Tourist Interest Zone 3 - ZET 3, have been the scene of these disputes since the 1980s, when this regulation were regulated to protect the landscape designed by the geographical configuration of the place. Since then, there has been a progressive abandonment of their buildings, which are degraded and demolished, with the justification that the urban control impairs these spaces economically. The constructed narrative says that this abandonment would be reversed with the modification of the occupation logic, enabling the desired “modernity” and “revitalization”. Thus, this dissertation questions how the height control has contributed to the formation of these urban voids. As a hypothesis, it's believed that the institution of regulation contributed, in these districts, to the retraction of building production, which has acted in the speculative retention of urban land by their landowners awaiting the valuation arising from supposed changes in urban parameters. Thus, as a general objective, the project aims to understand the formation of urban voids in the context of land ownership dynamics in districts within ZET 3 and the influence of height control on this process.