The acting mayors of Tapia, Ana Vigón (PSOE), has signed a decree by which the City Council rejects the requests presented by Exploraciones Mineras del Cantábrico (EMC) to modify the General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) with the objective of giving lace to the gold mine that he promotes in Salave. Specifically, the firm demanded the categorization of the area as Undevelopable Land of Mining Interest and the initiation of the environmental evaluation procedure.
To make a decision, and given the "complexity" of the matter, Vigón commissioned an external legal report from a specialist, in order to "objectively analyze" the City Council's response to the mining company's claims.
Vigón starts from the basis that the project for Salave is "incompatible" with the current urban planning, since the affected lands have protection and are classified as Undevelopable Land of Agricultural and Forestry Interest, as well as Special Protection of Fluvial Channels. . According to the According to the mayoress, the company made a specific modification proposal trying to "rectify some protection criteria that the City Council explicitly and formally established in 2014, when the PGO was definitively approved, trying to eliminate the current protection in favor of a use, the mining, which the current planning expressly qualifies as incompatible". According to the legal report, the councilor affirms that "these requests are a mere right of petition that, In view of the documentation provided and current legislation, they do not even admit the possibility of rectification". Therefore, adds Vigón, the company "exceeds its right to have the urban planning that it proposes processed, because the right to request is not the right to process and, where appropriate, to accept what is requested by the Administration" .
The mayoress tapiega adds that "the urban planner has the freedom to choose, among the different possible alternatives, the one he considers most convenient for the best satisfaction of the public interest, therefore the City Council enjoys total freedom to determine the way in which he has of ordering the territory". "As an administration we must attend to the satisfaction of the general interest, which means prioritizing the right of citizens to proper land use planning over private interests," she concludes.
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Vigón warns that, although the reasons for the inadmissibility are essentially legal, "one could also speak of political criteria and the development project that this Mayor's Office wishes for Tapia de Casariego."
