The popular initiative so that the properties of Salguero Coast and Punta Carrasco be allocated to a public park will be debated in the Buenos Aires Legislaturea, after the Constitutional Affairs Commission ruled on Monday that this project “meets the admissibility requirements” and can then be analyzed by the deputies of the City of Buenos Aires in parliamentary committees.
The opinion was signed by legislators from the blocs of Together for Change (JxC) and del front of all (FdT) and the meeting of the parliamentary commission also participated the environmental organizations that promoted the popular initiative.
“This project has the support of the citizenry, it is endorsed by more than 53,000 signaturess,” said Bárbara Rossen, from the Collective in Defense of Public Lands (CdA), adding that the goal is “to give the city 32 hectares of public park” and for Buenos Aires to be “more democratic from a social point of view and sustainable from the environmental”.
The popular initiative seeks stop the project of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires on the riverside estates of Costa Salguero and Punta Carrasco, which points to sell a part of them so that private buildings can be built there with residential offices and shops.
“It’s a historic day. first timefrom the autonomy of the City of Buenos Aires, a popular initiative passes all the procedures”said for his part the national senator Mariano Recalde (FdT), who participated in the meeting as a speaker, since, although he is not a Buenos Aires legislator, he is one of the main promoters of the proposal.
For a popular initiative to take parliamentary status, it must have the signatures of 1.5% of the electorate of the City and the FdT and several organizations, including the CdA, Youth for Climate and Ecohouse, gathered these guarantees throughout the year last.
A sample of those signatures, drawn up by lottery, was verified by the Superior Court of Justice this year.
Recalde also considered that “every time the people participate, the leaders make fewer mistakes.”
In his turn, the Buenos Aires legislator Javier Andrade (FdT) stated that “The environmental issue generates more and more concern in the population” and stressed that it constitutes “an unprecedented fact that a request from citizens should be dealt with in this Legislature.”
• Today treatment began in the @LegisCABA the popular initiative for a public park in Costa Salguero ??.
We came to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to defend this project that we built together. We will not stop until it becomes law. ✌? pic.twitter.com/wmez0PSG2X
– Mariano Recalde (@marianorecalde) May 16, 2022
In accordance with the laws of the City of Buenos Aires, popular initiatives must be debated in the Legislature within a maximum period of one year.
“Now it’s up to us and we -Andrade added- our vote is going to define what happens with this, we are 60 legislators from three million inhabitants”.
The majority interbloc in the Buenos Aires Parliament is JxC, with 32 deputies from the Let’s Go Together, UCR-Evolution, United Republicans and Socialist Party blocs.
It is followed by the FdT with 19 deputies, Libertad Avanza with five, La Izquierda with three and Federal Consensus with one.
? • Today the treatment of the Popular Initiative by Costa Salguero began, we were in the Constitutional Affairs Commission defending the project and it has already passed to Commissions.
An unprecedented event in the Legislature and an achievement of the collective struggle in defense of our Costanera. pic.twitter.com/nciY8lw0KZ– Javier Andrade (@javieroandrade) May 16, 2022
“We hope that this initiative is approved in the chamber, otherwise, all the ruling party’s phrases about listening and dialogue are nothing more than slogans and party favors,” said the legislator. Lucia Campora (FdT).
Cámpora also argued that in the project for a park in Costa Salguero, in addition to environmental issues and access to public space, the policies of “access to housing”.
The buildings that could be built in Costa Salguero would be among the most expensive in the City, according to the value per square meter in that coastal area, and on several occasions from the FdT they warned that luxurious real estate developments tend to raise the cost of housing throughout the district.
At the end of the meeting, the president of the Constitutional Affairs Commission, Hernán Reyes (JxC), took the floor, who considered the initiatives of the Buenos Aires Government for the city’s waterfront “positive”, since -he said- “they increase the number of public spaces” that the original project called “Young District” envisaged.
With the opinion signed this Monday, the project will be referred to the corresponding commissions according to the issue it addresses, such as Urban Planning and Budget, both chaired by JxC deputies.
However, the FdT can request that it also be debated in the Public Space commission, which chairs that block.
