Urban planning: Integrating resilience and sustainability in the regulatory framework

Abstract

The interrelation between actions towards sustainability and urban resilience is an aspect of great significance in the development of cities. The paper focuses on resilience from the urban planning perspective to be applied in the national legal framework of Spain, based on the extensive experience that sustainability has acquired in this discipline. However, the difficulty of introducing risk mitigation measures and climate change adaptive strategies in the regulatory framework means rethinking mechanisms to transform urban processes. The research carried out focuses on identifying the deficits that exist within the legal framework to make spatial planning, itself, a resilient and sustainable tool. The reformulation of new standards in local spatial planning, especially those related to green and blue infrastructure, allows redrawing the decision-making process from a holistic point of view, combining environmental, social and economic sustainability with urban resilience isues. Our study offers a taxonomy of regulatory modifications in spatial planning at local scale associated with indicators and standards useful for spatial development. The introduction of new calculation parameters when establishing the surface and location of the open spaces network (green and blue infrastructure) favors a sustainable and resilient urban planning. Some strategies, such as the ones developed in Red Hook (New York) and the Zorrotzaurre area project in Bilbao present innovative solutions in the alignment ofsustainability and resilience. The paper will contribute to a greater understanding of the application ofknowledge acquired on sustainability and resilience in spatial planning actions supported by an appropriate legal framework in the Spanish context.