Assessment of Planning and Building Regulations of Social Housing in Mexico: An Environmental Quality Approach. Case Study: Durango

The objective of this work was to develop a tool to assess planning and building regulations of social housing settlements in Mexico in order to identify the minimum guidelines that ease environmental quaky for its inhabitants. The methodological strategy consists in identifying the similarities and dissimilarities of regulatory instruments of a case study -Durango- versus an international certification system -CASBEE-UD-. This paper is based on two elements that frame the problem: 1) the scarce articulation between normative and planning elements in the three levels of government in Mexico and, 2) the absence of sustainability criteria in the current normative guidelines. It is concluded that regulations of social housing, at an operational level, are generalist and do not guarantee environmental quality in the urban context. It is expected that the specific guidelines proposed in this work -where construction parameters, urban planning and sustainability criteria were articulated-, contribute to the improvement of the framework that regulates the development and construction of the social housing in Mexico.