face of emergencies and widespread informality, its limitations become apparent. The main obstacle identified by all stakeholders is the “permit process”: according to a study by Pivotes (December 2025), strategic projects in the region face delays of up to an additional 2.5 years due to environmental assessment processes and legal challenges. Added to this is a concerning budget projection: a decrease of nearly 18% in MINVU’s regional budget for 2026, which limits innovation and job creation in the construction sector. The zoning plans for the municipalities affected by the 2024 fire were not up to date at the time of the disaster, and none adequately addressed risk zones. The debate over the extension of Emergency Law No. 21,681 is a determining factor for 2026: without it, several delayed reconstruction projects will lack guaranteed funding. The new Minister of Housing, Iván Poduje, announced that his ad- ministration will aim to complete the reconstruction within 15 months, using tools that, according to him, the previous administration did not utilize: removing eligibility restrictions, allocating housing through public procurement, utilizing targeted subsidies, and aligning all emergency programs. He added that, since the housing units already have permits, it would not be necessary to apply for new authorizations. In April of this year, the minister presented a Gantt chart with the re- construction schedule for the El Olivar sector in Viña del Mar, committing to the construction of 800 homes between June and December of this year, including for people whose homes were declared uninhabitable and those who do not have an assigned project. The Regional Minister for Housing acknowledged that “completely finishing the reconstruction process in 15 months is quite complex,” noting that reconstruction of the damage caused by the 2010 and 2014 fires is still being finalized. The Construction of the City in Los Cerros One of the most structural problems with housing policy in Valparaíso is the disconnect between the location of housing and the provision of amenities and infrastructure that make it livable in real urban terms. The prevailing logic is well known: the government builds where land is available and affordable, which in Valparaíso almost always means the most remote hills, the second and third lines of elevation, and hard-to- reach ravines. The result is housing that exists as an architectural object but fails to integrate into the city as an urban reality. Families who move into these housing complexes often face a cruel paradox: they have left a shantytown with material precariousness, only to enter an environment with a different kind of urban precariousness. The nearest school may be a forty-minute uphill walk away. The doctor’s office, on the other side of the hill. The pharmacy, on another hillside. Public transportation, if it exists, runs at intervals incompatible with work schedules. And every day businesses—the market, the neighborhood grocery store, the hair salon—take years to set up shop, if they ever do. Housing without a city is not a housing solution: it is displacement with a roof over one’s head. Exchanging material precariousness for urban precariousness does not resolve vulnerability; it transforms it. This phenomenon signifies the breakdown of the neighborhood. The communities that lived in the shantytowns or their original neighborhoods did not just lose a home; they lost a neighborhood cultural network. When these families are relocated to distant housing complexes, that social fabric unravels. The new housing arrives on its own, without the neighborhood fabric. Valparaíso’s geography makes this problem particularly acute. The hills are not flat lots where the planned city block can be replicated: they are territories with extreme slopes, ravines, single access points, and their own microclimates. Building on them requires not only adapted structural engineering but also comprehensive planning that considers the provision of basic amenities, pedestrian and vehicular connectivity, and the relationship of the complex to the pre-existing neighborhood
from the outset. When these elements are left for a second phase that rarely materializes, the housing complex becomes a disconnected enclave: visible from the master plan, but alien to it. The solution is not to stop building on the hills, but to radically change the minimum standard for what is considered “completed housing.” A home delivered without safe pedestrian access, without functional public transportation, and without local amenities is incomplete. Current regulations do not require this standard. The necessary institutional change would be to raise the bar for what the government considers decent housing, incorporating the urban dimension as an absolute necessity rather than a future aspiration. Current regulations do not yet require this standard. The institutional challenge that remains is to raise the bar for what the government con- siders a decent housing solution, incorporating the urban dimension as an essential condition rather than a future promise. However, Valparaíso has historically demonstrated a unique capacity to rebuild itself from within its own communities. The strength of its neighborhood networks, the culture of solidarity born in the hills, the tradition of neighborhood organization, the deep roots of its inhabitants, and an identity forged between the port, the ravines, and collective labor remain invaluable social capital. In a city accustomed to living with fires, earthquakes, and successive crises, a shared memory of resilience persists that transcends material precariousness. The future of Valparaíso will likely depend not only on subsidies, master plans, or real estate investments, but also on the ability to recognize and strengthen those historical forms of local architecture that allow the city to be inhabited, cared for, and rebuilt from within its own port culture. ! guest architect Joaquín Velasco Rubio By: Pablo Altikes, Javiera Benavides, Lucía Ríos, Javier Contreras Edited by: Bárbara Vicuña “There are architectural projects that are experiences” “And others that manage to establish themselves more as a work of art in their own right,” says this architect, who has been closely tied to the city of Valparaíso for practically his entire academic and professional life. His name made a big splash in 2025 when he won the PAU Award for Best Heritage Intervention Project for his work “Destino Valparaíso” at the former German School, which houses the Museum of Immigration. However, his career has much more to offer. We wanted to explore his work in depth. Thus, we went to Valparaíso and walked the streets with him. Here is what we found.
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