The Legal and Judicial Training Centre will organise an “Urbanism Law” seminar on March 26th to 30th in the Auditorium of the Centre, Rua Dr. Pedro José Lobo, n.os 1-3, Banco Luso Internacional building , 18th floor, from 5 pm to 7 pm.

Integrated as part of the 2nd EU-Macao Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field, this event will feature as its keynote speaker Dr. Fernanda Paula Marques de Oliveira, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra and Professor in the Centre of Studies for Urban Planning, Urbanism and Environment (CEDOUA), Portugal.

This event will be conducted in Portuguese, with simultaneous translation into Cantonese. During the five daily sessions, which will take place until March 30th, the following topics, among others, will be discussed sharing a global view on Urbanism Law:

1. Characterisation of the urbanism law and their main reference areas: urban planning, land law and public construction law;

2. The city planning and its legal system (legal comparative differences between Portugal and Macao): types of statutory plans, their interrelationship, development procedure(s) (with emphasis on public participation) and other related issues;

3. Law of the lands: the importance of the law of the lands for a coherent and effective urban policy. Reference to instruments of land policy and fiscal policy associated with urbanisation policy. The legal norms governing urban property and urban expropriations (in the classical and sacrifice sense);

4. The difference between public construction law and the private construction law;

5. New tendencies in the development of urban planning law in Portugal: town planning for urban containment (to fight urban sprawl), consolidation or intensification of the existing urban fabric (a compact city approach), urban renewal (at the expense of new construction) and social cohesion (as opposed to segregation);

6. Models of urban management.

The 2nd Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field between the European Union and Macao, which incorporates this seminar, has as its main objective the “Consolidation of the Macao Legal System” and is going to take place until December 2013.

The execution of the Co-operation Programme is coordinated by the Law Reform and International Law Bureau, together with many entities and public departments of the Macao SAR, namely the Legal and Judicial Training Centre, the Legal Affairs Bureau, the Economic Services, the Financial Services Bureau and the Institute of European Studies of Macao.