“Study of the possibility of regulating more clearly the participation of private initiative in the formulation of proposals for certain planning instruments.” The proposal to modify the Law on Territorial Planning, Urbanism and Landscape (LOTUP) announced by the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón (full document at the end of the information), is a declaration of intentions that leads to leaving urban planning in the hands of developers, so that they could even have the power to modify general plans, an exclusive competence of city councils.
This is confirmed in the successive points of the legal amendments proposed and presented to the public: “Flexibility of planning, with the study of the possibility that development plans can modify in a justified manner the general structural planning; favoring the indirect management of Integrated Action Programs, without having to justify in any case the non-applicability of direct management”, are other points that go in the same direction.
The reform of the Valencian Urban Planning Act is nothing more than the composition of a tailor-made package for the entire construction sector. With it, the PP Consell is developing a new coastal law, more permissive than the current one and relaxing the Horta Territorial Action Plan (PAT), which currently protects 11,000 hectares of agricultural land. In addition, the recently announced decree on protected housing increases the maximum price per module from 2,200 euros per square metre to 2,400 euros.
Added to all this is the fact that the new decree of administrative simplification known as the Plan Simplifica de la Generalitat Valenciana presented last July includes the reduction of the distance at which construction is permitted on the coastline from the current 500 metres established by the Pativel (Territorial Action Plan for the Green Infrastructure of the Coast of the Valencian Community) to 100 metres.
Regarding the future Valencian Coastal Law that will replace Pativel, entities such as the Acció Ecologista-Agró platform have already warned that “it degrades and regresses in an alarming way the protection of the Valencian coast, distancing us from climate change.” The environmental organization adds: “Under the pretext of coastal protection with which the author justifies himself, hides the populist intention of promoting the privatization of the maritime-terrestrial public domain.”
Regarding the Horta Territorial Action Plan (PAT) approved in 2018 by the Government of the Botanical Pact, the idea pursued is to extend the deadline established in the regulations so that municipalities can recover enclaves of abandoned orchards, which in turn, it allows building on part of these lands. That is, the cultivation could be recovered in two parts and in a third rehabilitated or built. Almost no project has been presented within the five-year period provided for by law.
Finally, regarding the new housing decree, the regional executive justifies the increase in the price of social housing by the need to encourage developers to build this type of development to stimulate public-private collaboration. The objective of the decree is to promote the incorporation of 10,000 social housing units into the legislative framework to contain prices.
The decree, which will be approved in the coming weeks, establishes different levels of housing protection and a system of “dynamic modules”, which provides for price differences for social housing depending on the area in which it is located, its average income. or demographic criteria. It is a way of adjusting the final price to market laws and taking into account the different construction costs according to geographical areas, always with a maximum threshold set at 2,400 euros. Thus, instead of a homogeneous price throughout the territory, each protected subdivision will have its recognized particularities. The reference price of the module will be updated every year, according to the reports of the Housing Service.
The new regulations will also increase the income thresholds to be able to access protected promotions in the case of families that have elderly people or dependent children, in addition to young people.
