Susana Diaz, La Presidenta of Andalucia, has revealed her latest get rich quick scheme for getting Andalucia out of the recession – we’re going to build our way out!
Hang on, I’m getting a sense of dejá vù here….
She’s unveiled a package of legal changes aimed at speeding up the planning process in order to allow the construction sector to flourish, in her own words.
In my own words, it looks as if she’s just undone a number of changes put in place after the urban abuse cases of the last decade, and beefed up a few government departments. The main changes are for the way cities change their zoning plans.
María Jesús Serrano, Andaluz Minister for the Environment and the person in charge of all this, proudly said that as from now, no change to any city zoning scheme should take more than two years.
To help this, she’s created a new government quango called the Consejo Andaluz de Ordenación del Territorio y Urbanismo (CAOTU – the Spanish Administration has never understood the importance of snappy acronyms) which is the sole body in charge of changing city zoning plans.
Cities and large towns send off their proposed changes to CAOTU who then ask all involved parties (but not the citizens who have to live with these plans) if it’s a good idea. They have two years to get back to the city or large town.
Maria reminds us of the importance of good planning for the future of economic growth in Andalusia, and adds that she won’t allow “construction and planning to become the cultivated fields from which grow the seeds of corruption”, which is an eloquent way of putting it.