One of the issues constantly under debate in the Valencian Community and which is once again one of the big open questions after DANA is that of urban planning. The Government of Carlos Mazón has just approved an emergency decree law with which to address the situation generated in the municipalities most affected by the floods and which, paradoxically, It will reduce the processing to be able to build homes and move industrial zones but at the same time it will freeze projects that were already in processing without clear deadlines.
The norm with urgent urban planning measures seeks to “facilitate” the tasks of reconstruction of homes and industrial estates after the flood of October 29, according to the Minister of the Environment, Infrastructure and Territory, Vicente Martínez Mus. This includes the creation of a new urban planning figure of an autonomous nature, that is, which, in contrast to the traditional General Urban Planning Plans of the town councils, will be processed by the Generalitat.
According to Martínez Mus, this new figure has the fundamental objective of reducing processing times to nine months, “when under normal conditions and without interruption of procedures they could last years.” Thus, with these special urban reconstruction plans it will be possible to create and organize land for the construction of homes, as well as the relocation of industrial or tertiary estates, the integration of infrastructures that are necessary.
The Generalitat justifies this streamlining and the reduction of procedures in the DANA emergency and the need to recover homes in the affected area. However, this speed in creating these new homes and industrial estates contrasts with the fact that, at the same time, it will freeze all projects currently being processed on “rural floodable land.”
At the expense of state planning
Thus, while in the already urbanized urban land the current uses in each general plan will be maintained, in the rural floodable land affected by DANA “all urban planning procedures presented will be suspended“as of October 29. This precautionary suspension will be lifted when the central administration approves a hydraulic works program for the area.
According to the Generalitat, this measure will only be lifted when the State approves “a scheduled list of hydraulic works to be carried out, also valued economically, that allow eliminating the risk of flooding in the affected municipalities,” according to Martínez Mus. Taking into account the precedents of works planned in more than two decades and not carried out with Governments of different political parties, it does not seem that this temporary measure will be lifted in a short time.
In the case of rural land that has not been flooded, “urban planning procedures are admitted, but a mandatory report from the State basin body, which is the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation, will be required,” the councilor explained.
The decree law also allows the authorization of city councils to process and approve planning modifications on urbanized land to facilitate reconstruction, as well as the creation of a new figure, Local Reconstruction Projects (PRL), which will allow vacant unexecuted land to be allocated, qualified as endowment equipment, for the construction of residential homes.
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