Approach to a management methodology for sustainable historic centers

Abstract

The protection of historical zones has been a process that has evolved in the last decades worldwide, and Colombia has not been unaware of this event since, since the mid-20th century, advances have been made in the development of instruments for the management and vindication of the tangible heritage of historic centers. In this way, the PEMP Special Protection and Management Plans emerge as the main instrument of action within the National Historic Centers Recovery Plan. Despite the existence of management instruments such as the PEMP, it is still incipient its application in most municipalities due to the lack of resources of the entities charged at the national level, and the lack of process management simultaneously with other instances of the municipal government, actors of the private sector and civil society.

Of the 44 historic centers declared in Colombia, only some departmental capitals have instances that develop specific tasks of direct application in the PEMP. Equally, the articulation of technical nature of the PEMP with other planning tools is scarce, even though this is the one that is in the highest hierarchy, even above the POTs. In recent researches of the group Constructed Heritage: Text and Context, it has been possible to identify some difficulties to generate synergies between the application of the PEMP and the needs of the population, which evidences the need to evaluate the relevance and effectiveness of the actions proposals in line with the impact on the community.

According to a report by the Ministry of Culture of 2015, some municipalities that have PEMP approved and implemented, already show phenomena such as high real estate pressure, incompatibility of performance criteria between regulatory bodies, dismantling between planning and regulation, increase in tertiary uses that displace the uses of housing and favor the exodus of the permanent population, among other impacts mentioned in the follow-up report. In this sense, the objective is to analyze management instruments of historical centers in Colombia, identifying the aspects to be improved taking into account that the implementation of these instruments should tend to update the functions of historic centers, preservation of existing structures and revitalization in the current context, for socio-economic development with positive balance for the local population. The results contribute in the approach to a management methodology for sustainable interventions in historic centers.