Privatized 'Costa Verde': The Ineffectiveness of Urban Planning to Guide the Development of Lima's Coastline as a Public Space

Abstract

"Lima has a strip of cliffs on its coastline, named Costa Verde, which stretches through 15 km from north to south. Below the cliffs, there is a strip of beaches, mostly artificially developed during the 1960s, when the highway that runs along the coastline was built. The Master Plan for the Development of the Costa Verde, enacted in 1995, was aimed at regulating urban development in the coastline area of Lima. However, this planning instrument has become ineffective and, during the last two decades, several private leisure facilities have been built on the beaches, as well as real estate projects on the cliffs. This has endangered the preservation of the natural landscape. On the other hand, the interventions of the local authorities on this space, focused on the consolidation and expansion of the road infraestructure that runs along the coastline, have emphasized the freeway nature of the Costa Verde. As a consequence of these interventions, the coastal border of Lima has not been able to develop as a metropolitan public space, giving place, instead, to processes of privatization of the area along with its consolidation as a car transit fast track. This article proposal explores the critical aspects of the Costa Verde Development Master Plan, and raises the need to have in place new instruments that emphasize the function of Lima’s coastline as a public space and the protection of its natural landscape."