ABSTRACT
The chances of success in managing urban development increase when the planning framework is legally coherent, stable and sound. This is not the case in Peru, where planning can be seen as self-defeating. Regulatory at its core, the physical and administrative nature of Peruvian planning opens the door to the application of exceptions that facilitate different modes of in/formalised urban development. One such exception is formalisation legislation. Contrary to the intentions of the planning system, the implementation of this latter type of legislation consistently encourages the production of self-built settlements, a process that continues unabated in the country. This chapter, therefore, examines how the conceptual, operational and implementation inconsistencies and contradictions of planning regulations work in tandem with the prescriptions of formalisation legislation. Specifically, it explains how the synergistic interplay of the exception logic embedded within these two regulatory frameworks contributes to shaping the legal hybridity that frames urban development in the country. Within this hybridity, Peruvian planning is continually weakened as the logic of exception underpinning formalisation becomes more dominant than that of planning. As a result, access to land is made even more difficult for poor and marginalised communities.
