Approval of PROTA is the culmination of fundamental process for regional planning
The upcoming approval of the Regional Spatial Planning of the Azores (PROTA) by the Legislative Assembly is the “culmination of a process” that is fundamental in the framework of the planning system in the archipelago.
This is the assessment of the Regional Secretary for the Environment and the Sea, Álamo Meneses, who was heard on Wednesday by the Commission of Parliamentary Affairs, Environment and Labour of the Legislative Assembly of the Azores on five proposals for regional legislative decrees related to the environment.
For the Regional Secretary, the importance of PROTA, whose creation has a “long history” and “involved multiple entities,” is based on the fact that this document is "a framework for all other plans in the Region.”
Approved by the Government in September 2009, the PROTA is a tool for the territorial development of strategic nature which transposes the major goals of sustainable economic and social development into the area of spatial planning. Moreover, it also equates the measures to mitigate intra-regional disparities, taking into account the specificities of each island.
The document which is now being analysed by the Parliamentary Commission, integrates the major options with relevance for the regional development, providing general guidelines on the method of use. These guidelines should be a framework of reference for other tools related to spatial intervention, such as the Special Plans for Spatial Planning, the Municipal Spatial Planning Plans as well as for the relevant strategic tools in the areas of coastal occupation, water resources, tourism, transport networks, housing policy and energy issues, among others.
At the hearing that took place in Horta on Wednesday afternoon, the Regional Secretary, informed, through videoconference, the parliamentary commission on the law proposal on the establishment of a legal scheme for inert extraction in the coastal area and territorial sea as well as of preventive measures for the Guilherme Moniz/Pico Alto hydrographic basin, in addition to the approval of the general regulation on noise and pollution control, and the creation of the Environmental Management Society and Nature Preservation - Azorina, SA.