the new Parish Planning and Urbanism Plan (POUP) of Andorra la Vella will guarantee the preservation of the entirety of the central park. The document, which is already closed and will be put on public display at the end of this month, fully protects the current green space and establishes that, in the future, it will become communally owned when the partial plan for the area is developed.
The preservation of Central Park has been one of the corporation’s priorities during the drafting of the new plan, as explained by the Consul Major, Sergi González. The council’s mandate was to prevent urban development in the area from compromising one of the parish’s main green spaces. “From the first moment we were clear that Andorra la Vella he couldn’t afford to lose Central Park. It is the great lung of the parish and a point of reference also for the country as a whole”, he points out Gonzalez.
The new planning fully preserves the 18,000 square meters which occupies the park which, as the consul pointed out, “will end up in the hands of the common when the partial plan is executed”. It is, however, a process linked to the future urban development of the area and which, therefore, will not have immediate effects.
Currently, the land is privately owned and the common holds it for rent, a situation that will continue as long as the plan is not deployed. The future public ownership will also mean that, when that moment arrives, the corporation will stop assuming the current lease cost, which is around one and a half million euros per year. From the common, however, the emphasis is mainly on the guarantee offered by the new one POOP on the definitive preservation of space. “The important thing is to ensure that the Central Park continues to be a green and public space for future generations. This was a decision we had to make now, even if its effects end up materializing later,” said the consul.
The protection of the Central Park is part of one of the general lines of the new town planning plan: contain growth, reduce building pressure and expand and consolidate the spaces intended for public use.
