Consolidated and updated text of the federal laws that define Brazilian urbanism. Each law comes with a technical reading in plain language, a record of amendments, and cross-references to the articles in the Arsenic Diary that comment on it.
Regulates articles 182 and 183 of the Constitution. Creates the toolbox of municipal urban policy: Master Plan, charge for additional building rights, OUC, ZEIS, EIV, progressive IPTU.
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BR · LAW 6.766Known as the Lehmann Act. Governs how a raw parcel may be divided into lots: subdivision, lot split, lot condominium, minimum infrastructure, slope restrictions.
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BR · LAW 13.465Creates Urban Land Regularization (Reurb). Reurb-S (social, fee exemption) and Reurb-E (specific). Establishes the Land Regularization Certificate (CRF) as the final administrative act.
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BR · DECREE 9.310Regulates Law 13.465/2017. Details the administrative procedure for Reurb-S and Reurb-E, the CRF flow and the duties of the municipality, the registrar and the federal government.
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Regulates article 175 of the Constitution. Defines concession and permission of public services. Parent statute of concessions. The PPP Act is complementary to it.
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BR · LAW 11.079Sets general rules for Public-Private Partnerships. Sponsored and administrative concession. 5% municipal cap on Net Current Revenue (article 28).
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BR · DECREE 8.428Regulates the Public Expression of Interest Procedure at the federal level. Mechanism by which the private sector submits studies to support concessions and PPPs.
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BR · LAW 11.445Original basic sanitation framework in Brazil. Defines the four services (water, sewage, solid waste, drainage) and grounds the national policy. Reformed by Law 14.026/2020.
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Provides for the protection of native vegetation. Defines Permanent Preservation Areas (APP), Legal Reserve, CAR. Replaced the 1965 Forest Code.
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BR · LAW 14.285Allows a municipal law to redefine riparian buffers along watercourses in consolidated urban areas, subject to technical criteria and a Master Plan in force.
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BR · LAW 12.305Establishes the PNRS. Defines reverse logistics, management plans, shared responsibility and the order of priority: non-generation, reduction, reuse, recycling, treatment, final disposal.
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Statutes that do not come from the Planalto, but weigh just as much in professional practice. Collected as the topics enter Arsenic's agenda.
Creates the Ecological ICMS in the state. 2.5% of the municipal share of ICMS is now allocated according to the Final Environmental Conservation Index (IFCA), with weights set by Decree 41.844/2009.
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Municipal · Petrópolis PETRÓPOLIS · LAW 7.167Reviews and updates the Petrópolis Master Plan, established by Law No. 6.321/2005, under article 182 of the Constitution and Chapter III of Law 10.257/2001. The decennial review came due in March 2024.
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Brazilian laws are on the Planalto website. Reading them, rarely. The official portals prioritize fidelity to the original text over legibility. The Arsenic Library brings together the principal urbanism statutes in consolidated text, with editorial typography, per-article anchors, visual marking of repealed provisions, and a technical reading in plain language at the top of each law.
Each law converses with the Arsenic Diary. When the text appears in a post, there is a direct link to the full version. When the law appears here, there are links to the articles that comment on it.
The collection grows as new topics enter Arsenic's agenda.