Tenure of Urban land: structure, form and transformation of the original urban space of the city of Ribeirão Preto/SP

Abstract

The understanding of the formation of urban space in Brazil can not be restricted to a single perspective of analysis. The objective of this article is to discuss the urban morphological aspects of cities governed by the legal regime of the emphyteuseus, a recurrent situation in the northeast of the state of. With special attention to the city of Ribeirão Preto. It is not possible to define exactly when the process of formation of the Brazilian urban space has gained procedural contours for the foundation of a locality, however, one can recognize and give meaning to a process that, if not the only one, was the most disseminated in the state of São Paulo: the formation of religious heritage. The granting of lands to the Catholic Church was recurrent in Brazil during the colonial and imperial periods for the founding of the cities. As these lands were destined to the formation of patrimonial goods of a holy devotion of the residents, they could not be commercialized. Empowerment, enfiteuse or emprazamento are synonyms of a legal procedure that, over time, has proved to be very flexible in relation to the historical moment, the interests of the various social agents and their adaptation to the social environment. This legal regime reveals a relationship in which there is an owner - direct owner - who has direct control of the urban land, granting to another, the tenant, the useful domain of the land. The latter had the right to use the land and the obligation of an annual tax payment and a commitment to give a percentage of the sale of the property. The enfiteuse was a way of breaking up the property under a contract. In the year of 1845 some farmers gave a land for the formation of the property of the saint San Sebastião, where today it is the city of Ribeirão Preto. This conjuncture defined the structure, the form and the transformations of the original urban space of the city.