Yesterday, the Plenary Session of the Santomera City Council approved the progress of modification number 10 of the General Municipal Planning Plan (PGMO), which will eliminate the obligation to raise at least three floors in structural rehabilitation and in the construction of housing in urban centers. The initiative of the Popular Party government team, whose objective is to facilitate the execution of projects by owners of ground-floor or two-story homes and stop depopulation, was supported by Vox and Alternativa por Santomera. The PSOE abstained after unsuccessfully proposing to establish a minimum of two floors on the main streets.
The mayor, Víctor Martínez, stated that the General Plan, from 2008, “has not worked” in this matter and is “strangling the town” of Santomera, since many residents give up on thoroughly renovating or rebuilding houses due to the high cost. The consequence, he lamented, is that there are many properties in a situation of “deterioration and abandonment.” And he linked urban rigidity with the loss of 200 inhabitants in a few years.
«The center of our town is dying. And the modification of the General Plan is a demand of all of Santomera. Citizens must be able to continue living in their parents' home, the one they have inherited; “They do not have to be expelled to live somewhere else due to the obligation to build three stories,” Martínez remarked.
The first mayor congratulated the Councilor for Urban Planning, José Antonio Verdú, and the officials for a proposal that seeks to solve “an endemic evil that no corporation has been able to modify.” And although he opened himself to the possibility of incorporating opposition proposals, he warned the PSOE that it will not include any height limit. He defended urban “freedom” and addressing the requests of “500 neighbors” (the population is around 16,000). And he added: “We do not have buildings of great architectural value, this is not going to substantially alter the town.”
PSOE councilor Antonio Castillo defended “the collective right to have an orderly, harmonious, continuous town with a certain linearity, especially on its main roads”, such as the N-340 highway and the Abanilla highway. It is, he said, a matter of “general interest.”
The local proposal will be evaluated by the Autonomous Community, through the Ministry of Development and Infrastructure, directed by José Manuel Pancorbo, from Vox. Martínez hopes that the procedures will move forward “quickly” to “revitalize” the municipality.
And he advanced to THE TRUTH, which is working on two other variations of the plan: one, to eliminate the mandatory use of the ground floor for commercial purposes, so that its use as housing is allowed; and, another, to promote the development of the Vicente Antolinos industrial estate, especially the lemon processing sector.
#Santomera #City #Council #eliminate #obligation #build #heights