Porto Alegre, Brazil

Porto Alegre is an important port city of 1.5 million inhabitants at the center of a metro area of 4.4 million. It is the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sol and lies only 150 miles north of Brazil’s border with Uruguay.

Porto Alegre launched a TDR program in 1979 that generates development rights from land the municipality condemns for roads, parks and other public infrastructure. Smolka (2013) reports that this program has also succeeded in acquiring land for public works without expropriation or contested judicial orders by compensating property owners with TDRs that can be sold and used to exceed development baselines in other parts of the city. For example, the TDR mechanism funded half of the cost (US $9.8 million) of acquiring 13.2 hectares of land for Avenida Perimetral, a new arterial with bus rapid transit facilities.

Smolka, M. (2013) Implementing Value Capture in Latin America: Policies and Tools for Urban Development. Cambridge: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.