Teresa López Pavón Sevilla

Seville

Updated Tuesday, February 13, 2024-20:41

  • Andalusia Urban Planning agrees with the Government to unblock the Land Law

The Constitutional Court (TC) has practically endorsed in its entirety the Andalusian Land Law (LISTA) approved by the Government of

Juanma Moreno

in 2021, although it restricts the residential use that the regional law allowed on rural land, according to the press release. that the TC itself has issued.

In a ruling for which Judge

Concepción Espejel has been the speaker,

the TC practically dismisses in its entirety the unconstitutionality appeal presented at the time by the parliamentary group of Unidas Podemos against Law 7/2021, of December 1, on Impulso for the Sustainability of the Territory of Andalusia (LISTA), and, subsidiarily, against certain precepts thereof.

To begin with, the signatory deputies considered that the processing of the law had been irregular and impeded political participation and its debate as a result of

processing through emergency means

. However, the ruling considers that the deadlines established were "very similar to those of the ordinary procedure, with a very high number of amendments and appearances."

Different provisions of the law were also challenged that supposedly violated local autonomy, the principle of legal certainty or basic legislation on environmental matters. But the plenary session of the TC also rejects most of the challenges.

However, it has declared "unconstitutional" a section of article 22.2 of the law in which, after considering the possibility of authorizing equipment, industrial, tourist or tertiary uses on rural land, it also includes "buildings intended for residential use." The TC considers that this nuance can

lower the level of protection

that the higher law grants to rural land.

Likewise, it considers that article 137.2.f of the Andalusian law violates basic legislation because it excludes the

mining industry

from the

requirement of a municipal planning license

for the development of the activity. And, finally, it annuls a section that has to do with livestock routes, in that it does not admit the implicit disaffection of such routes without prior demarcation.

In addition to Unidas Podemos, the Government of

Pedro Sánchez

had also appealed the Andalusian Land Law, specifically 42 articles of it, although

that appeal was finally withdrawn

after reaching an agreement with the Board in exchange for the introduction in the text of a series of qualifications that guarantee that the law is subject to the provisions of higher-ranking state regulations.

In this way, it was possible to avoid the risk of paralyzing the application of a law, approved during the mandate of Councilor

Marifrán Carazo

(today mayor of Granada) and highly anticipated by the city councils, because it served to unblock, to a large extent, the processing of hundreds of municipal urban plans that required years of management to see the light.

The city councils, also those governed by socialist mayors, had been asking for greater room for maneuver and the streamlining of processes for decades to avoid the paralysis of their urban development. The last government of

Susana Díaz

left a draft draft that served as the basis for the law that was later taken up by the Government of

Juanma Moreno

, which made it possible to reach a minimum agreement with the PSOE in its processing, although not without some bumps along the way. Electoral calculations delayed approval, which finally occurred in December 2021.