This paper reports the role of the Popular Plan of Urbanization and Land Regularization in the struggle for the settlement Jardim Nova Esperança (a community known as Banhado) permanence in the city center of São José dos Campos - SP after its more than 80 years of history. The Plan is an instrument of political negotiation with the government, involving issues of environmental conflicts, labor, ruralurban relations and land conflicts, and it mostly seeks to problematize the importance of rural production in a central area and to analyze the possibility of the community adequacy to the environmental sensitivity of the territory. From primary and secondary sources, this paper evaluated controversial decisions made by the government in relation to this community. In order to do so, new technologies were used to support cartographic production and an alternative project methodology with the resident participation was proposed, conditions that can engender the emancipation of social rights and reposition the context of the struggle for housing in the city center. The Plan was coordinated by the PExURB group, with public funds from the Learning in the Community Program (USP) and the ATHIS Public Notice (CAU / SP).
