Abstract:
This dissertation consists of two chapters that complementarily address the relationship between urban development and the environment. The first chapter, considered a general introduction to this dissertation, is a book chapter that presents the history of the urban evolution of the Municipality of Canoas, from its origin to the present day, with an evaluation of its urbanistic legislation and the impact of the main historical landmarks of its conformation. Thus, the urban history of Canoas was divided into four main phases: (i) Capão das Canoas; (ii) The Working City; (iii) The Industrial City and (iv) The Metropolitan City.These phases were defined by collecting data on the main urban infrastructure works and by creating allotments and housing estates. Also presented and discussed are the master plans and other instruments of municipal urban management, as well as the main interventions of the Government in the territory.The second chapter, written in article form, brings the investigation of the implementation of the "Estudo de Impacto de Vizinhaça" (Neighborhood Impact Study - NIS) is an urban planning tool (part of the Brazilian City Statute - Federal Law 10.257/2001) that establishes a previous diagnosis of social and environmental conditions in future built-up areas. Thus, the NIS assesses the potential impacts in urban areas and contributes to the planning and sustainable development of the Brazilian cities. In this paper, we aimed to propose a new qualitative method to evaluate the two public stages of NIS (both analyzed by the municipal authorities). This method is based on performance scores of each item of NIS, where the scores graduation follows the same criteria used by the Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool). Then, we generate two worksheets (by performance scores of all NIS item) which evaluate both the Municipal Technical Assessment stage and the Municipal Management stage, respectively. We emphasize that these two worksheets are an adaptable tool that can be applied to any Brazilian municipality. As a demonstration of the method potential, we analyzed 25 NISs cases submitted and licensed to the Canoas municipality. From this, we conclude most of the NIS evaluated are deficient and thus prevent a real understanding of both social and environmental impacts of future constructions. Finally, we believe that this new method can be used to improve public management, as well as to carry out academic studies that aim to compare the NIS application in different Brazilian municipalities and/or regions.
