Uruguay
The national government objected to Rocha’s chosen procedure to reclassify the projected airport’s land
The National Directorate of Territorial Planning said the procedure initiated by the municipality is not sufficient for this case. According to reporting by El País and documentation confirmed by Búsqueda, it requested that the complementary route be opened.
The Rocha Municipality has launched the process to change the land category where an international airport is planned between the Garzón and Rocha lagoons. The municipality is seeking to have those parcels cease to be transformable rural land and become suburban land.
According to Búsqueda, the file was published on August 11 on the municipality’s website as part of the “public display” of the abbreviated Integrated Action Program to reclassify two parcels already acquired by Corporación América Airports. The company is promoting the initiative together with the National Directorate of Aviation and Aeronautical Infrastructure of the Ministry of National Defense.
But the National Directorate of Territorial Planning informed the municipality that the project “does not meet the conditions to be an Abbreviated IAP,” according to reporting by El País and a response accessed by Búsqueda. Instead of that mechanism, the agency requested the documents needed to begin a complementary IAP.
The response was sent to Luis Castelli, a representative of the Fundación Lagunas Costeras, an organization that is calling for the project to be relocated because of its environmental impact, Búsqueda reported.
Under Law 18,308, the abbreviated IAP does not require a strategic environmental assessment or a correspondence report and provides for a single mandatory public participation stage. By contrast, the complementary IAP requires compliance with all procedures and participation stages provided for in the regulations.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not do original reporting on this event.
