This paper addresses the environmental, legal and housing disputes that converge in the environmental reserve located at the Cerros Orientales (eastern hills) of Bogota. The socio-urban logic of the city -linked to pirate developments and invasion-, the migration flows -emphasized by the armed conflict- and the lack of definition of a clear public policy for the last 30 years, has led to a conflict between residents, civil environmental protection organizations, private companies and public institutions in which almost only specific judgments have interceded. This paper duly reflects -through secondary sources- those considered main government initiatives and actions implemented with a top-down approach and it investigates -through primary sources collected in the neighborhood La Cecilia- the bottom-up community action initiatives and territorial perceptions, looking into the sterile dialogue processes between these two ways of making a city.