For small towns this situation is a disgrace, as it means paralyzing the law for many months and for us every day is important,” comments Jaume Gilabert, mayor of Montgai and coordinator of the Eines de Repoblament Rural (ERR) lobby, in reference to the compass. waiting period to which the statute of rural municipalities is subjected due to early elections. The legislative draft that establishes measures to stop depopulation was already delayed, but in recent months it had been given a boost and everything indicated that its processing in the Parliament could begin before the summer, after its approval by the Government. But the appointment with the polls on May 12 seems to have left this initiative in limbo.
Entities such as the aforementioned ERR, which brings together more than 500 localities with up to 2,000 registered residents, or the Micropobles Association, with 261 with less than 1,000, show their dismay at this new delay of a statute that establishes actions to establish population in the municipalities rural areas and to provide them with more resources. The document prepared by the Presidency, once the 426 allegations presented have been analyzed, of which 205 have been accepted and 55 have been partially estimated, foresees that a total of 596 municipalities will be considered rural, 18 more than initially planned. The drafters of the text have accepted some of the allegations that called for making the conditions more flexible to be able to enter this category.
In general terms, the statute proposes a kind of positive discrimination towards small towns in an attempt to promote territorial balance. As indicated by Joan Solà, mayor of Riner and president of Micropobles, the demands of the rural world rest on four axes: “Administrative simplification, improvement of financing, flexibility of urban planning procedures and that all departments of the Generalitat introduce a rural view in their policies.” For Solà this break “is a hard blow.” “It has been a very slow and very long process, which began in 2018. Now that we almost had it and that all the groups in the Parliament agreed, it is paralyzed, who knows how long, it is a setback for all of us” , Add.
The document defines rural municipalities as those with less than 2,000 residents integrated into regions that have a minimum of 15% of residents in towns with a density of less than 150 inhabitants per square kilometer. The latest draft has made the requirements more flexible so that those who have up to 3,000 registered residents and a population density of 90 people per square kilometer and who support a negative growth rate during the last ten years can also access, in addition to those who are in a bordering region and do not exceed 2,000 residents.
Likewise, the category of assimilated rural municipality is created to incorporate those with up to 5,000 inhabitants with a minimum of ten aggregate nuclei of less than 500 residents, such as Tremp and Artesa de Segre. It should be noted, according to the Secretary of Local Governments and Relations with Aran, that, in the latter case, the law will only apply “in the aggregate nuclei.”
“Based on the allegations, the most relevant changes that we have introduced refer to the definition of a rural municipality,” add the same sources. The aforementioned 596 towns fall within this category, of which a total of 381 will enjoy “special attention.”
The demand that has been repeatedly raised by Catalonia that is far from the city, which sees its population shrinking and which has very few resources, is to receive special treatment from the administrations. City councils are clamoring to reduce bureaucracy by not having enough staff to, for example, be able to complete urban planning changes or qualify for subsidies. In this sense, the draft law that is now on hold proposes studying new urban management models for localities with few residents.
“Housing is one of the issues that concerns us the most; The urban planning regulations of the Generalitat limit us, they only allow us to build houses in the urban area. We have already explained it 200 times, but in the offices of Barcelona it seems that they do not understand it, they have a paternalistic view, they set themselves up as protectors of the territory and we are the victims. Here you can build macro farms, wind and photovoltaic parks, but they don’t let us build a house on rustic land, and the country is increasingly depopulated,” considers the mayor of Montgai.
The Presidency indicates that they are studying the possibility that the Government could approve the statute on the date that had been planned before the electoral call, April 2, assuming, however, that it would remain in a situation of impasse. And the Department of Territory points out that legal services must determine whether it is viable to continue with the processing of the draft high mountain law, a proposal that comes 41 years after the first regulation designed to give a boost to the most remote and unpopulated areas. .
