City council debates concession of parks by Doria administration.

Brazil Current Network - City councilors in São Paulo will hold a public hearing next Monday (11) to discuss the concessions for parks, planetariums and squares proposed by the mayor of the city of São Paulo, João Doria (PSDB). Called by councilor Eduardo Suplicy (PT), the meeting is expected to bring together dozens of people and environmental activists in the 1º de Maio Plenary, starting at 13 pm. The main concern is how to align environmental preservation and broad public access to the city's green areas with the pursuit of profit by entrepreneurs.

According to the city hall, all 107 parks in São Paulo should go through the concession process, as part of Bill 367/2017. However, Wilson Poit, a businessman affiliated with the Novo party and head of the Privatization and Partnerships department, admitted that the model is still open, which makes the process less transparent.

"The deadlines are not yet determined; we will decide during the bidding process," he stated at the first public hearing on the topic, held on July 26th at the City Council.

The park concession project is one of the few that already has an Expression of Interest Procedure (EOI) underway. Twenty-six proposals were submitted, and 21 were authorized to develop initial projects. The compensation for managing the parks should include profits from parking fees, events, food and beverage sales, bicycle rentals, paid Wi-Fi, and filming locations.

Some parliamentarians have already expressed their opposition to the privatization proposal if there are no guarantees of environmental preservation and free public access to green spaces and areas. This is the position, for example, of councilman José Police Neto (PSD).

"It's possible for society to get involved in management without that goal. We are willing to discuss this model. But it doesn't seem to me that we made the right decision in placing profit generation as the central point. We have to think about what formula we will use to attract the private sector; otherwise, we risk reducing the supply of environmental services, reducing public access to green areas, and reducing respect for the environment," he concluded.

Councilwoman Juliana Cardoso (PT) makes a similar assessment. "I don't see in the history of the world the preservation of the environment linked to private initiatives that aim for profit. They destroy the environment, they take everything that remains. For me, this project is premature and comes without any kind of technical organization, only with the discourse that our heritage is useless and worthless," she criticized.

"The mayor wants to transfer everything to the private sector so he won't even need government departments anymore, because companies will be within the public sector managing everything. We need to understand what's behind this private sector initiative and why they want our public parks so badly," he added.

Although the project has not yet been approved, Doria has already initiated the transfer of management of some parks to the private sector, such as Augusta Park, which is still under implementation, and Victor Civita Square, in the west zone, which will be granted along with the former. Among the parks to be granted are Ibirapuera, Carmo Park, Aclimação Park, and Trote Park. In some of them, the population has complained of neglect by the public authorities.