The instrument of outorga onerosa in Fortaleza as a strategy to increase real estate value

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze an instrument called outorga onerosa, which is used by the government to authorize landowners to exceed the floor area ratio upon payment of a financial compensation, as a new practice of the real estate market in the reproduction of capital in the current Brazilian context of economic crisis. Our premise is that the regulation of such instrument in the city of Fortaleza, state of Ceará, is being used as a practice associated with the high- and very high-income segment and with highly valued areas of the city, to (re)establish production restructuring patterns and increase capital accumulation in the current crisis scenario. We verified that the instrument has been used as a differentiation strategy that allows to reach high prices and extraordinary profits. This strategy is enabled by the flexibilization of different urban indices, without maximum limits, opposing federal and state legislation and increasing socio- -spatial inequalities.