A
AIU
A unit of São Paulo's territory defined by the Strategic Master Plan to receive structural urban transformation. It has no basis in federal legislation. It functions as the antechamber to detailed planning via PIU.
The AIU delimits the perimeter and general guidelines; the PIU designs the urban, financial and legal project that operationalizes the transformation.
APP
Environmental protection buffer around sensitive features of the landscape: riparian margins of watercourses, steep slopes, hilltops, springs, sandbanks and mangroves. Its function is to protect water resources, geological stability and biodiversity.
In land subdivision in the serra, it is the APP that defines where subdivision is not allowed, even when Law 6.766 and the master plan say otherwise.
B
BNDES Cidades
Credit line of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) targeted at municipalities. It finances drainage, paving, active mobility, public lighting and administrative modernization works, with longer terms than commercial credit.
Access depends on the municipality's borrowing capacity, demonstrated through CAPAG, and on project structuring, typically supported by FEP Caixa or FEP BNDES.
C
CAPAG
Fiscal capacity rating of a subnational entity, calculated by the National Treasury from three indicators: indebtedness, current savings and liquidity. The ratings range from A to D.
A municipality rated CAPAG A or B can raise external credit backed by federal guarantee, an indispensable condition for accessing IDB, World Bank and CAF. CAPAG C or D closes that door.
CAR
National electronic public registry, mandatory for all rural properties. It compiles information on perimeter, permanent preservation areas, legal reserve, consolidated areas and remnants of native vegetation.
It serves as the environmental regularization database and is a prerequisite for joining the PRA (Environmental Regularization Program), removing vegetation and accessing agricultural credit.
CEPAC
Security issued by the municipality within a Consorted Urban Operation. Each CEPAC represents an additional building right, sold at public auction by the CVM (Brazilian Securities Commission).
It is the instrument that monetizes, before the work, the extra building potential created by law. Revenues must be reinvested within the OUC perimeter. Faria Lima and Porto Maravilha are the most well-known cases.
COFIEX
Interministerial commission that evaluates and approves external credit operations of interest to states and municipalities, with or without federal guarantee. Without COFIEX clearance, the request never reaches the international bank.
The process is slow: it can take more than a year from the Letter of Consultation to the contract. For that reason, projects with IDB or the World Bank need early structuring.
Concessão administrativa
PPP contract in which the Public Administration is the direct or indirect user of the service. There is no tariff charged to the end user. The private partner's full remuneration comes from the government counter-payment, tied to performance.
A typical model for public lighting, hospitals, schools, prisons and urban requalification. In urban projects, it is the natural way to fund parks, sidewalks and facilities without a tariff.
Concessão patrocinada
PPP contract that combines a user tariff with a government counter-payment. The tariff is not enough to make the project viable, so the public authority complements the private party's remuneration in exchange for performance and quality.
A typical model for urban mobility, BRT, light rail and deficit-running highways. It differs from common concession precisely by the presence of a government counter-payment.
Concessão comum
Concession of a public service in which the private party is remunerated exclusively through the tariff charged to the user. There is no government counter-payment. It is not a PPP.
It is the classic form for revenue-generating sanitation concessions, highways with strong toll revenues, energy. When the tariff cannot close the gap, the project switches to a sponsored concession (PPP).
Condomínio de lotes
Form of subdivision in which the lot is part of a condominium with private internal roads. Each autonomous unit has its own title record; circulation infrastructure and common areas are an undivided share of the condominium owners, not public goods.
It is the legal basis for so-called horizontal gated communities. It differs from access-controlled subdivisions, which keep public streets.
CRF
Final administrative act of the Reurb process. It attests the approval of the land regularization project and instructs the registration of the subdivision at the real estate registry, generating an individualized title record for each unit.
Without a CRF, there is no registration. Without registration, there is no full ownership, no real estate credit, no exit from informal limbo.
D
Desmembramento
Subdivision of a raw land parcel into lots that uses the existing road system, without opening new streets and without extending, modifying or widening those already in place.
It is the lightest operation in land subdivision. It differs from a subdivision (loteamento), which requires the opening of new streets and the donation of public areas. Even so, it requires municipal approval and registration.
E
EIA/RIMA
Prior environmental licensing instrument for activities that effectively or potentially cause environmental degradation. EIA is the full technical study. RIMA is the report in accessible language for public consultation.
It differs from EIV, which looks at urban impacts on the neighborhood. EIA/RIMA is environmental, federal, older and broader in scope.
EIV
Prior analysis of the effects of a development on its immediate surroundings: population density, traffic, demand for facilities, infrastructure, ventilation, lighting, urban landscape and heritage.
It is municipal law that defines which developments must submit an EIV. It does not replace the EIA/RIMA, which remains required for environmental impacts.
Estatuto da Cidade
Federal law of general guidelines for Brazilian urban policy. It establishes the social function of urban property and the catalogue of urban planning instruments: master plan, progressive property tax, charge for additional building rights, consorted urban operations, EIV, ZEIS, special urban adverse possession, among others.
It is the matrix reference cited in every municipal master plan. Without the Statute, OUC, OODC and CEPAC would not exist as tools.
F
FEP Caixa
Fund operated by Caixa Econômica Federal that finances, with non-reimbursable resources until contract signing, the preparation of Technical, Economic and Environmental Feasibility Studies (EVTEA) for municipal PPPs and concessions.
The municipality contracts the study; the private winner of the tender reimburses the fund. It lowers the barrier to entry for small municipalities to structure sophisticated projects.
FEP BNDES
Line equivalent to FEP Caixa, operated by BNDES, focused on larger states and municipalities. It finances EVTEAs for concessions and PPPs in sanitation, mobility, public lighting and waste management.
It differs from FEP Caixa mainly in project size and borrower profile. For a medium-sized city, FEP Caixa is usually the shorter path.
FINISA
Caixa credit line for public entities, focused on urban infrastructure, sanitation, drainage, mobility and housing. Longer terms than commercial credit and rates indexed to TR or Selic.
Like BNDES Cidades, it depends on a sound CAPAG and on COFIEX clearance when there is an external guarantee. It typically forms part of the funding package for sanitation and drainage projects in medium-sized cities.
FUNDURB
Municipal fund established by the City Statute. It receives revenues raised through the charge for additional building rights, through the charge for land use change and through urban counterpart contributions. It returns them as infrastructure, housing, public facilities and land regularization.
It is the channel through which real estate appreciation created by law returns as urban benefit. Mandatory earmarking of resources is a safeguard against general use in current expenditure.
G
Genius loci
Philosophical concept that describes the proper character of a place: its landscape, memory, materiality, atmosphere. Recovered in urbanism by Christian Norberg-Schulz, it becomes a method of reading the territory before any project intervention.
For Arsenic, it is the first filter of every project in the serra: understanding what the place is, before proposing what it can be.
I
ICMS Ecológico
Mechanism that allocates part of state ICMS to municipalities according to environmental criteria, such as conservation units, sanitation, water sources and waste management. In Rio de Janeiro, 2.5% of the municipal share is distributed according to the IFCA.
For municipalities with large preserved Atlantic Forest cover, it is a recurring and significant source. Unlike voluntary transfers, it is a right of the municipality.
IFCA
Allocation index for Rio de Janeiro's Ecological ICMS, calculated by SEAS, INEA and CEPERJ. It combines conservation units, environmental quality, sewage treatment, waste disposal and water sources.
The higher the municipality's IFCA, the larger its share of the state's Ecological ICMS. For Petrópolis and serra municipalities, it is an underused fiscal asset.
IPTU progressivo no tempo
Tax sanction applied to an idle or underused urban property, after notification for PEUC. The rate increases year by year, up to a ceiling of 15%, as long as the owner does not give the property a social use.
It is one of the three sequential instruments set in the Constitution to counter land speculation: PEUC notification, progressive property tax, expropriation with payment in public debt bonds.
L
Lei Lehmann
Nickname by which Law 6.766, of December 19, 1979, which governs urban land subdivision, became known. Named after Senator Otto Lehmann, the bill's rapporteur.
It is the federal law that governs subdivision, lot split and, after 2017, lot condominium. It has been updated by more than a dozen laws over the decades.
Loteamento
Subdivision of a raw land parcel into lots intended for building, with the opening of new circulation streets and public spaces or with the extension, modification or widening of existing streets. It entails the mandatory donation of areas for road system, open spaces and urban and community facilities.
It is the structural urban operation par excellence: it creates a new piece of city. It differs from lot split (desmembramento), which simply uses what is already in place.
M
Marco Legal do Saneamento
A deep reform of the basic sanitation sector. It sets the goal of universal access to drinking water and sewage collection and treatment by 2033, imposes regionalization of service delivery and requires competitive tendering for contracts previously signed by interagency agreement.
It reopens the entire sector to private concessions, under ANA regulation. It has a direct effect on the municipal sanitation PPP agenda.
MIP
Procedure in which the private party spontaneously proposes studies to the public authority for a concession or PPP. Unlike the PMI, the initiative comes from the market, not from the municipality.
It functions as a signal of appetite. If accepted, the project enters formal structuring; afterwards it goes to tender, and the author of the MIP competes like any other bidder, without guaranteed advantage.
O
OODC
Instrument through which the municipality charges a financial counterpart from the developer who intends to build above the basic floor area ratio set by the master plan, up to the maximum coefficient allowed.
Revenues from the OODC must be directed to FUNDURB and are reinvested in infrastructure, housing and facilities. It is the everyday form of capturing land value.
OUC
Set of urban interventions coordinated by the municipal authority, with the participation of owners, residents, users and private investors. Approved by a specific municipal law, which delimits the perimeter, defines the urban transformations and finances everything through counterpart contributions, additional OODC and, optionally, CEPAC.
Paradigmatic cases: Faria Lima, Água Espraiada and Porto Maravilha. It is the most robust tool for coordinated transformation of an urban area.
Outorga onerosa de alteração de uso
Twin instrument of the OODC. Instead of selling additional building potential, the municipality charges a counterpart for changing the permitted land use (industrial to residential, residential to mixed, for example).
Like the OODC, it depends on inclusion in the master plan and the resources are directed to FUNDURB.
P
Parcelamento do solo
Division of a raw land parcel into urban lots. Governed by Law 6.766/79 (Lehmann Act), it can take two forms: subdivision (loteamento), with the opening of new streets, or lot split (desmembramento), which uses the existing road system.
It is the founding operation of legal urbanization: approved and registered subdivision is what separates a regular lot from a clandestine one.
PEUC
Notification by the municipality to the owner of an undeveloped, underused or unused urban property, requiring them to give the asset a use within a set deadline.
It is the first step in the anti-speculation sequence: PEUC, then progressive property tax, then expropriation. It depends on inclusion in the master plan and a specific municipal law.
PIU
Instrument created by the São Paulo Strategic Master Plan (Law 16.050/2014) to detail AIU or OUC perimeters in urban planning, legal and financial terms. It has no basis in federal legislation.
The PIU translates the AIU's guideline into a project. It defines the urban design, the parameters, the counterpart contributions and the financial instruments. When it becomes law, it can authorize CEPAC issuance and the signing of a PPP.
Plano Diretor
Municipal law that guides urban development and expansion. Mandatory for cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants and for several other cases under the City Statute. It defines zoning, macro-areas, coefficients and applicable urban planning instruments.
It has a minimum decennial review by law. An expired plan creates legal uncertainty and blocks instruments such as OODC, progressive property tax and OUC.
PMI
Public call in which the federative entity invites private parties to submit technical, economic, legal and environmental feasibility studies for a concession or PPP. The best studies are used in the official modeling and the author is reimbursed by the tender winner.
Unlike the MIP, here the initiative comes from the public authority, with an issued call, deadline and defined criteria. It is the most common path for complex urban projects.
PMRR
Civil defense planning instrument. It maps sectors of geological and hydrological risk in the municipality, ranks priority areas and defines structural works, drainage, removals and monitoring.
For serra cities such as Petrópolis, it is the document that links the risk diagnosis to the queue of mitigation works. Without an updated PMRR, federal civil defense funding stalls.
PPP
Long-term administrative contract between the public authority and the private sector, with government counter-payment tied to performance. It can be an administrative concession (the Administration is the user) or a sponsored concession (user tariff plus government counter-payment).
Municipalities may commit at most 5% of Net Current Revenue to PPP counter-payments. It is the legal ceiling that bites hardest in medium-sized cities.
R
Reurb
Set of legal, urban, environmental and social measures aimed at incorporating informal urban settlements into territorial planning and titled property. It replaces previous fragmented regimes and creates two modalities: Reurb-S (social) and Reurb-E (specific).
It ends with the Land Regularization Certificate (CRF) and the registration of the subdivision. It is the legal path to turn occupation into property.
Reurb-S
Reurb modality applied to informal urban settlements occupied predominantly by low-income population. It has exemption from court costs, registry fees and taxes for the regularization. Costs are borne by the public authority.
It is the design aimed at social interest housing: consolidated settlements, favelas, irregular popular subdivisions.
Reurb-E
Reurb modality applied to informal urban settlements that do not qualify as social interest. Court costs, registry fees and taxes are borne by the beneficiaries, and the municipality has no obligation to finance.
Typically used in middle and upper-class clandestine subdivisions, irregular country estates and unregistered condominiums.
RCL
Sum of the federative entity's current revenues (tax, transfers, patrimonial and others), net of mandatory transfers to other entities. It is the leading fiscal capacity indicator used by the Fiscal Responsibility Law.
In the PPP world, it is the base for the 5% ceiling that a municipality may commit to counter-payments. Once the ceiling is exceeded, new contracts are suspended.
Royalties de petróleo
Revenue transferred by the federal government to states, municipalities and federal agencies as compensation for the extraction of petroleum and natural gas. There are shares for producing municipalities, for municipalities affected by loading facilities, and a state share that indirectly benefits all municipalities in the state.
In Rio de Janeiro, it is a significant source, with a tendency to decline over time. Good practice is to tie royalties to capital investment, not to current expenditure.
S
SPE
Corporate entity formed exclusively to implement and manage the object of a PPP. Required by Law 11.079, with segregated accounting, its own governance and specific capital rules.
It allows isolating project risk from the controller's legal entity, segregates the contract's cash flow and facilitates bank financing, guarantees and oversight by the granting authority.
T
Transferegov
Federal government platform that centralizes interagency agreements, transfer contracts, grant terms and collaboration terms between the Union, states, municipalities and civil society organizations. It replaced SICONV.
It is the gateway for voluntary transfers to works of infrastructure, drainage, urbanization and public facilities. Without an active registration, the municipality cannot draw resources from parliamentary amendments or from ministerial calls.
U
Usucapião urbano
Acquisition of property over an urban property of up to 250 m² by someone who possesses it as their dwelling, uninterrupted and without opposition, for five years, provided they do not own another urban or rural property.
It can be filed individually or in collective form (article 10), when applied to an area larger than 250 m² occupied by low-income population. It is an instrument of the social function of property.
Z
ZEIS
Portion of the urban territory dedicated predominantly to social interest housing, with more flexible urban planning rules: smaller lots, adapted coefficients, reduced setbacks and easier regularization.
It can be a ZEIS of voids (unoccupied land reserved for future social interest housing) or a ZEIS of occupation (consolidated settlements to be regularized). It is one of the main land inclusion instruments in the master plan.
