2024 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

The Master Plan is a municipal law that guides the growth and urban development of every municipality. As the main urban planning instrument provided for in the City Statute, it is essential that it be drawn up with the participation of the population. 

The practice of holding conferences to build the Master Plan began in the municipality in 2005, with the First Municipal Urban Policy Conference (CMPU). The second conference took place in 2010 and gave rise to a bill, which was withdrawn from the city council before it could be voted on due to the end of the legislature. The III CMPU was held in 2018, which approved the Master Plan and the resulting Land Use, Occupation and Parceling Law, which were the subject of public civil actions filed by the Minas Gerais Public Prosecutor's Office. 

In 2021, through an agreement with the Public Prosecutor's Office, Contagem carried out a major popular mobilisation to revise the municipality's Master Plan. The IV Municipal Urban Policy Conference was convened and coordinated by the Municipal Urban Policy Council (COMPUR) between 2021 and 2022, resulting in an intense exchange of experiences and knowledge between the municipal government and civil society, emphasising transparency and mutual respect, as well as the firm intention to collectively build a better city for everyone. 

Contagem's Master Plan aimed to combine urban, economic and social development with the preservation of the city's natural resources. Among the main aspects considered for its development is the planning of actions based on the context presented, fulfilling the wishes of the community in the social, cultural, mobility/transport, housing, land regularisation, land use and occupation and sustainability areas. 

One of the innovative instruments in this Master Plan is the Participatory Management System, which guarantees monitoring from the CMPU, with annual plenary sessions to monitor its implementation, as well as the involvement of the population throughout the process of building and revising the Masterplan with the help of digital tools, in a transparent and democratic way.

• https://decidim.contagem.mg.gov.br/processes/smduh-plano-diretor?participatory_process_slug=smduh-plano-diretor (External link)