The international concern for the treatment of land as a unique resource worthy of preservation from unnecessary development pressures, in a similar way to the preservation of energy sources and water, has been gathering momentum in recent years. A host of policy documents has been published reflecting these concerns [1] and in some parts of world countries benefit from explicit legislative and regulatory instruments aimed at monitoring the availability of brownfield land to counter the uncontrolled urban expansion of development onto greenfield land. Great Britain and the United States are just two examples of such countries, which enjoy brownfield strategies and special fiscal arrangements and subsidies for the redevelopment of brownfield land. Spain does not have a brownfield strategy as such, as expressed explicitly in those terms, however it is suggested that this same concern exists, albeit in a more diluted manner, for the re-use of existing land over above development on new land. The country benefitted from new planning legislation in 2007 [2] and as a result of this a number of policy documents have followed, as well as new and proposed legislation on housing, the environment and urban sustainability. What the transversal reading of all this documentation leads to is a clear appreciation of an ever increasingly firm positioning on the part of the Central Government on brownfield urban policy. This communication seeks to provide a comparative review and appraisal of the evolution of planning related legislation and guidance since the 2007 Planning Act, with a view to demonstrating that the country does indeed have a clear and ever more explicit policy position favouring brownfield development, in line with shared international concerns for the treatment of land as a finite resource and an ever more restrictive approach to greenfield urban development.

Peer Reviewed