One of the strongest criticisms of the expedition of the Territorial Organization Plan (POT) of Bogotá, through a decree signed by the mayor Claudia Lopez, had to do with the lack of a broader discussion on some points and a consensus on the Bogota Council so many qualified the decision as “arbitrary”.
(‘Bogotá, finally, has a new POT’, Claudia López).
To this controversy was added the strong opposition that the mayor had made, at the time, Enrique Peñalosa before the possibility that he chose to issue the POT by decree when he was mayor of the city, which has earned him a shower of criticism for his attitude and what some called “lack of coherence“.
The truth is the law empowers Claudia López to issue the POT by decree, something that at the time his predecessors, Enrique Peñalosa and Gustavo Petro, former mayors of Bogotá who had the initiative collapsed, could not do.
“The POT has been discussed for 10 years and 3 mayors. The Council denied the proposals presented by the Petro and Peñalosa administrations. On the other hand, our POT had 3 positive presentations. Once the deadline for discussion has expired, we adopt it by decree, a power that the law gives us “said the mayor during the press conference in which she announced her decision and the foundations of the plan.
(The Bogotá POT decree was issued: this is how the sectors react).
According to Dario Hidalgo, PhD and an expert in mobility and issues from Bogotá, Claudia López had the power to decree the POT because the Bogotá Council ran out of 90 days to vote on the project with some modifications to the initial text, which as a whole had already had positive presentations.
“This was the third POT that was presented to the Council and that it did not approve. However, in the two previous cases, the Council denied it. During the Gustavo Petro and Enrique Peñalosa administrations, the Planning Commission debated and the Commission voted negatively. Under that condition they could not be decreed, something that did not happen with Claudia López’s POT, which did have positive presentations and the 90 days to make modifications and vote were exhausted “Hidalgo points out.
However, the expert considers that although the decision is under the umbrella of the law, it leaves a bad taste because Claudia López herself had promoted that a POT was better by agreement of the Council and not one by decree.
THERE ARE AGREEMENTS
Another difference between the POT of López and those of Peñalosa and Petro is that the former, in addition to the positive presentations, had reached a direct agreement between the Council and the administration, which allowed almost all of the POT articles to have a high percentage of agreement. However, the lack of time did not allow the debate and the president opted for the decree.
(POT of Bogotá, a mole in the infrastructure).
López thus joined the list of mayors who issued the POT by decree, as Peñalosa himself had done in 2000; Antanas Mockus, in 2003; and Lucho Garzón, in 2004.
BRIEFCASE
