It is not new that the PP points out the Horta Law as a problem for Valencian territorial policy, but since the fateful DANA it has not hesitated to use it as a lever for its interests. The government of Carlos Mazón is using the DANA alibi to launch a hoax: that the law blocks interventions to channel the Poyo and Saleta ravines, which is why it is necessary to reverse this protectionist legislation of the previous Pacte del Botànic government.
When Mazón appeared in the Valencian Courts to explain his management during the episode of the catastrophic storm, he already directly pointed out this law as an obstacle that prevents the action for which the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) is responsible, and this Monday it occurred one more step in this sense. In a meeting of the Ministers of the Environment and Agriculture, Vicente Martínez Mus and Miguel Barrachina, with the mayors of the localities affected by DANA, both announced a review of the legislation to “unblock the action projects on the channeling of rivers and ravines.”
As a key point, they aimed to cut the responsibilities of the Consell de l’Horta, an organization that integrates various councils, the Provincial Council of Valencia, the Valencia City Council, agricultural organizations and entities that defend the garden. To date, their reports were mandatory and binding, but with the regulatory change they will limit their responsibility only to agricultural matters.
The Consell chaired by Mazón states that “currently, reports on improvements in these ravines are unfavorable, despite the fact that technicians have recognized the urgency of these interventions to avoid future floods. Once the modifications to the Garden Law are approved, both projects will be unblocked, which will force the Ministry for the Ecological Transition to carry out the works.”
“Build everything you can”
But the PSPV and Compromís have denied the majority, stating that what the legislation does is protect the territory and therefore the citizens, and that the PP uses the DANA as an “alibi” to deepen its urban promotion policies. .
The socialist María José Salvador, former Minister of Territory, affirms that there is “no report that blocks or puts in a critical situation the intervention on these ravines.” Salvador points out that “there are only reports of corrections and conditions such as landscape integration, the proof is that the projects are in process.”
The PSPV deputy assures that “it is a hoax by the PP to continue with its policy of reversal of the territory.” Remember that the Simplifica Plan presented by the Consell “recommits to urban planning, it is a counter-reform to the lack of protection of territory and facilitates construction in protected territory.” He also explains that “the most appropriate equation is ‘more protection of the territory = more protection of people'”, but that “the PP model is the opposite” of his, and that it consists of “building everything you can”.
From Compromís, the deputy spokesperson, Paula Espinosa, has followed the same line: “the PP Council is lying when it says that the Horta Law has been a brake on the implementation of action projects.” Espinosa insists that “what this law requires is to guarantee that these works adapt to the protected territory, making them more useful in the climate context that we suffer, but in no case does it prohibit their adaptation.”
The deputy assures that the councilors who attended the meeting with the mayors “blatantly lied,” and regrets that “the PP’s misrepresentation of the legislative reality in the protection of the territory is being very crude.”
Both deputies agree that the responsibility for the paralysis of the channeling was the PP Government of Mariano Rajoy, as already denounced by the previous Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera. They remember that the projects dated back to 2006 and 2007 and that with the entry of the PP Government they lost strength to the point that they expired in 2017. By then, and with the new territorial legislation, the socialist Government of Pedro Sánchez had to restart the project, which entered the ministry in 2022, a project that is still in process.
#hidden #urban #interests #Valencian #Horta #Law #aggravated #effects #DANA
