What if painting a room without notifying the City Hall results in a fine of R$100,000?

The proposal to rectify the Simplex Urbanístico presented by the Government and which apparently will be approved is, in general, positive. Even so, it contains a relevant imperfection that may have undesirable systemic consequences: the requirement to communicate to the city hall the beginning of any and all interventions in the building.

Let’s go in parts. According to the rules currently in force, only in works subject to a license or prior communication to the council is it mandatory to notify the council that the work will begin.

In the proposed changes under discussion, this obligation now exists for any works, regardless of whether or not they are subject to licensing or prior communication. Non-compliance can be punished with a fine of between €500 and €100,000 for individuals and between €1,500 and €250,000 for companies.

The option is understandable. With the expansion of the range of license-exempt works, including works of some size, for example those resulting from a PIP [Pedido de Informação Prévia]it makes sense, in some cases, for the Chamber to know what will be carried out and when.

The problem is that the proposed wording of the new legal text starts to capture everything: from structurally relevant works to what are called works of little urban relevance, such as painting a room, installing a brick barbecue or a drywall partition in the living room, building a shed, a dog house or a flower box.

In these cases, the obligation seems to be manifestly disproportionate, promising the clogging of municipal councils with irrelevant communications and creating fertile ground for the litigation of urban planning trifles, with the actions of malicious neighbors sufficient to trigger municipal inspections on interventions without effective urban impact.

Without a clear exclusion of works of little urban relevance from the obligation to communicate the start of works, Simplex Urbanístico runs the serious risk of becoming a model of excessive administrative control over the disposition of property by individuals, generating administrative noise, unnecessary litigation and legal and social costs that the system does not need.