In 2007 and 2008, ex-Special Rapporteur on adequate housing for the UN, city planner Raquel Rolnik, offered her consulting services to the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) to revitalize areas in the center of Rio de Janeiro.
She describes how she came to know about the contractors’ proposal for the Porto Maravilha project:
“In 2008, Élvio Gaspar [then-director of BNDES] calls and asks me to go to OAS and ask Léo Pinheiro [then-president of the company] to show me what they had in mind for the port. When I get there, I find the Porto Maravilha development project nearly finished: there was already a plan, all the proposed laws had been written up, etc. He was extremely interested in the project because he knew this could become a model initiative and open a totally new market for the contractors in urban development, that of PPPs [Public Private Partnerships]. In November of the next year, Eduardo Paes (PMDB) takes the Porto Maravilha proposal, sends it to the State House of Representatives, and by the end of the same year approves everything.”