Riga City Council has decided to turn to the Constitutional Court over the decision made by the Ministry of Environment Protection and Regional Development to halt the city’s development plan.
The city council’s representatives stress the disproportionate size of the ministry’s decision, in which the entire development plan is paused, not just the parts to which the ministry objects.
Minister Artūrs Toms Plešs’ party’s ties to gambling business and lobbying the interests of these businesses is mentioned in the city council’s complaint.
The opposition also criticized Riga City Council’s coalition for not fulfilling its promise to cooperate with the government, which has representatives from parties in the ruling coalition in the city council.
The coalition’s representative Einārs Cilinskis said complaints are justified. He also said it is necessary to work on improving cooperation with the government.
Vice-mayor Vilnis Ķirsis stressed that there is no need to evaluate Riga City Council’s cooperation with the government after this whole story. He believes the capital city and the government work well together, adding that the municipal administration has successfully attracted EUR 300 million from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism to finance different projects.
VARAM is the only difficult government partner, he said.
Representative of Latvijas attīstībai political party and Chairman of the board of Riga Freeport Viesturs Zeps invited members of the city council to look back the quality of the work they do. He reminded that Riga City Council deputies were previously punished by the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau for the decision to donate Rīgas satiksme’s money to TTT basketball club. He reminded that the Saeima decided to hand over St.Peter’s Church to the community instead of the municipal administration.
Zeps suggested sitting at a discussion table with colleagues from VARAM to discuss problematic issues.
It was previously confirmed by Plešs that VARAM decided to halt Riga’s territorial development plan due to numerous problems and non-compliance with laws, as well as lack of balance of interests of the sides involved in the procedure.
The minister said the territorial plan was developed inappropriately. «The biggest problem is that, according to this plan, Riga’s historical centre would be left without an approved territorial plan,» he said.
Riga City Council decided to maintain two mutually uncoordinated territorial plans, which is in contradiction of the law, which states that no more than one territorial plan can exist in the capital city at any given time.
According to Riga City Council’s vision, the historic centre would maintain the more than 16 years old territorial plan, which was amended only once in 2013 and does not comply with modern regulations. Additionally, this plan is not coordinated with Riga’s territorial plan.
Read also: Latvian Ministry of Regional Development halts Riga’s territorial planning
The ministry’s experts found major problems within Riga Freeport’s territory in Spilve and other parts of Riga outlined for development. It is believed this plan would significantly obstruct not only the development of the freeport’s territory but also Riga’s and Latvia’s economic development in the future. Both the Ministry of Economics and Ministry of Transport submitted objections about it to the city council.
Riga’s territorial plan provided for a reduction of acceptable noise levels. Efforts to set strict environment quality indexes are welcome, but VARAM notes that the plan does not contain a justifications that would allow the implementation of this without evaluating and balancing expediency and proportionality.
The minister mentioned the decision to ban all gambling in Riga and not outline special zones, as required by the law, as disproportionate.
The minister explained that that the municipal administration has not outlined specific territories in which gambling is prohibited. Instead the city council decided to ban gambling within the capital city entirely. The minister also said the effect gambling has on specific territories was not evaluated in the plan.
The municipal administration, on the other hand, explains that it has found multiple contradictions that indicate the ministry did not properly complete its objectives in the plan’s development process.
The city council believes it is unacceptable for the ministry to present any previously unknown objections after the plan came to force.
The municipal administration believes thereby the ministry’s rights to handle the plan development process on its own were breached. Regulations do not provide the minister the right to evaluate territorial development plan’s solutions, only detect whether there were any breaches of regulations committed.
This decision breaches the interests of residents and entrepreneurs in Riga, and because if the city’s status as Latvia’s capital, it also impacts state interests.
Throughout the development of the territorial plan there were three public discussions. The ministry did not object about violations during public discussions. Although the ministry says it has received 21 objections to the plan, none of them are listed in the ministry’s report as a reason for halting the plan.
Riga City Council to ask Constitutional Court to intervene with development plan situation
