COLOMBIA: Support for Bogota's Metro Line 1 Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Strategy

PPIAF supported an initiative that aims to engage private sector stakeholders in making the environments around mass transit stations more conducive to sustainable development. The initiative looked to help Bogota’s Empresa Metro (EMB) and Empresa de Renovación y Desarrollo Urbano (ERU) in designing a transaction model that could leverage the arrival of the Metro and the RegioTram (a Commuter Train) to improve the accessibility of a downtown area that has been affected by a decline over the last few decades. 
The activity sought to combine private investment with land value capture tools to undertake the transformation effort of a specific area, but given the size of that area and the potential produced by its future enhanced accessibility, it was found that the investments required to make the area more accessible via non-motorized transport could be assumed by just one large-scale development partner for the area that is marker for commercial and office developments. On top of the possibility that the large developer could finance all these accessibility and public space investments in the area, the selection of just one developer partner would also have added benefits to reduce transactional costs and risks of dealing with many development partners, a reduced need for the public sector to manage and coordinate the developments both financially and in terms of urban design, public spaces and accessibility and, finally, not having to depend on many developers or landowners on managing and/or maintaining the public spaces at the adequate quality levels to make the area a real Transit-Oriented Development.
The pilot effort also helped to identify institutional and regulatory limitations that should be overcome for the city to really push forward such a large-scale urban transformation effort under such an innovative scheme. Recommendations were made on how these barriers could be removed for the effort to deliver the levels of value required for the city, the transit users, and the investors.
Currently, Bogota’s Land Management Master Plan (POT) is being considered for approval by the Bogota City Council. Recommendations to be included in the POT would further allow instrumentalizing and regulating the options set forth by the Air Rights regulation (derecho real de superficie), as set forth by the National Law 1955/2019, and Bogota Decrees 822 and 823/19. Furthermore, considering the already signed concession for BML1, it would be required to amend this contract in order to be able to act under the Air Right regulation.