An inside look at the Provincial Council of Housing and Habitat

Abstract

The Law of Fair Access to Habitat (2012) of the Buenos Aires province deals the complexity of the urban-housing problem from a comprehensive perspective, establishing a democratic city management as one of its guiding principles. In order to achieve this, the Provincial Council of Housing and Habitat (CPVH) was created within the scope of the implementing authority, which acts as a multi-actor body for consultation and advices on policies and programs stablished under this law. Taking an inside look at the state perspective (Bohoslavsky and Soprano; 2010), our objective is to examine how the CPVH’s institutional agenda is constructed from its creation (2015) to 2020. We explore the topics discussed and research the ones defined as public issues and potentially directed towards the formulation of alternative solutions (Tamayo Saéz, 1997) as part of the implementation of the law. We concluded that this agenda was mainly influenced by the participation and representation of different actors, who guided the direction of the debates and topics addressed, which broadly revolve around the creation of the CPVH, the dissemination, training, and information available about the law, as well as its application and implementation.