Challenges to spatial justice: How to achieve planning targets while respecting constitutional rights; the new Viennese law on planning
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Date
2016
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AESOP
Abstract
The capital of Austria, Vienna, is a growing city in the heart of Europe. By 2014 about 1,8 million people had their permanent place of residence in the city, by 2029 the 2 million limit will be exceeded.1 With a distribution of 35% building land, 45% green area, 14% traffic areas and 5% water, Vienna meets the demands of many and has again ranked first in the Mercer international quality of living survey, covering 230 cities worldwide.2
Vienna’s administration now has to ensure, that the city maintains this high standard of living, providing not only for good infrastructure, but also maintaining Vienna as a socially just city.
One of the aspects that need to be considered in this task is the issue of land classified as building land, but not being used as such. In effect, about 25% of Austria’s designated construction land has no building or structure on it, but is neither offered for sale.3 Especially for Vienna with its vast recreational areas it is of utmost importance that estates suitable for construction and thus qualified by spatial plans as building land are in fact used for building houses and not left vacant, to provide its population with sufficient housing and protect green zones from being build up. To meet this target of reducing Vienna’s surplus of vacant building land, the city’s government enacted new provisions4 providing for the possibility of zoning building land for a limited time only to put pressure on land owners to make use of their estates’ status and actually develop their plots.
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Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the south
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