Urkupamba does not consider the issue of the ashes to be closed; its directors prepare the appeal to recover the planning license

The promoters of the Urkupamba ashes, located in the foothills of Pichincha, to the west of Quito, prepare the legal strategy for appeal the decision of the North Zonal Administration (AZN) of the Municipality of Quito, which on February 4 resolved to extinguish the Metropolitan Urban License (LMU).

Andrés Carrasco, manager of the Urkupamba Civil Society, He preferred not to advance details of how and before what instances they will proceed. What he did say was that this week the challenge. Meanwhile, the company consults with lawyers from various branches, including constitutionalists and criminal lawyers.

“We are in the process of seeing how much our names have been damaged, how much investments have been damaged, how much has been violated in this process,” said Carrasco, who considers that the initiative is the target of a political dispute between the current mayor Santiago Guarderas and former mayor Jorge Yunda.

‘Not a single tree has been felled for the Urkupamba ash heap and it has nothing to do with the La Gasca alluvium,’ says the project manager

The planning license is the authorization granted by the Municipality to enable, build, use or take advantage of public space, in accordance with the definition that appears in the Citizen Services Portal.

The project and a legal entanglement

Urkupamba proposes to install a cemetery where bodies will not be buried, instead, the remains will be cremated and their ashes deposited inside ecological urns buried around trees. For this, the project planned to use 35 hectares, within a 314-hectare property that belongs to the private company and is located on the slopes of Pichincha, in the Rumipamba parish.

The procedures to materialize this idea began in 2019. But it is not the first time that they want to create a cemetery on that land; in 2015 the Mariana de Jesús Foundation, former owner of the space, tried it. However, it did not prosper and was also rejected and criticized by some sectors.

The process that the Urkupamba project is a legal mess, due to the location of the land. There are documents from municipal and national entities, as well as private ones, that favor the interests of the project. And, at the same time, there are official provisions that prevent its development.

For example, on March 27, 2019 the Secretary of Environment of the Municipality pointed out that the property does not intersect (does not cross) with the National System of Protected areasYes, with the Protecting Forest and Vegetation on the Eastern Flank of Pichincha and the Green Belt of Quito; it intersects with the Pichincha-Atacazo Special Intervention Area (AIER).

The origin of the alluvium that affected La Gasca and La Comuna, in Quito, was natural and is not related to the Urkupamba ash heap, assured the Municipality

The Secretariat notes that, based on the Use and Occupation Plan (PUOS) 2018, the property is classified as Ecological Protection: a part is classified as zone A31 (PQ) and there “no type of project can be built or developed”; another part is as zone A7. In the end, it was suggested that a technical criterion be requested from the Territory Secretariat.

In another report dated April 8, 2019, the Environment Secretariat details that the 2018 PUOS “considers the establishment of funerary equipment in land use assigned as ecological protection / conservation of natural heritage, as long as guidelines are taken into account” of the plan. In addition, it indicates that authorization is needed from the Provincial Directorate of Pichincha and the Ministry of the Environment (MAE), because the project is within the Eastern Flanco del Pichincha Protected Forest.

This last detail, the authorization of the MAE, is one of the points for which the North Zonal Administration twice declined the urban planning metropolitan license. Precisely, the situation with the LMU is a reflection of the complexity surrounding the case.

Planning license comes and goes

The The cemetery already obtained the urban license in its favor on June 30, 2020, signed by Ana Cristina Romero, then administrator of the North Zone. The authorization was granted based on the certificate of conformity that the collaborating entity Desintecsa granted in favor of the project, in January of that year. This happened when Jorge Yunda held the mayor’s office.

Mayor Jorge Yunda suspends construction of a crematorium on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano

One month after the planning license was issued, in August of that year, the The Ministry of the Environment issued a favorable Environmental Technical Feasibility Certificate for Urkupamba, indicating that the project can be implemented in zone A7, as allowed by the PUOS of 2018. The feasibility certificate, however, does not mean an approval to execute the work, before the environmental permit must be obtained, he clarified the ministry.

Andrés Carrasco, manager of Urkupamba, said that since 2019 the environmental license in the state portfolio.

On June 10, 2021, Ana Cristina Romero signed a new resolution, retracting her first decision and canceled the LMU. It was based on Ordinance 446 that establishes the creation of the Special Intervention and Recovery Area (AIER) Pichincha-Atacazo, where activities are prohibited earthworks, felling of trees, destruction or modification of vegetation cover, among others.

A March 2021 report prepared by Gabriela Obando, who was then supervisor of the Metropolitan Control Agency (AMC), was also taken into account, which concludes that there were alleged breaches and technical omissions. It was questioned that the collaborating entity Desintecsa would have delivered the certificate of conformity, without verifying that the authorization of the Ministry of the Environment is complied with, as suggested by the Secretary of the branch in April 2019.

The Urkupamba manager reacted with a extraordinary appeal for review, which was attended by the Metropolitan Attorney’s Office. After examining documents of the case, on December 16, 2021, the deputy prosecutor, Svetlana Ivanoba, concluded that Romero acted “without legal competence”, since the administrative act can be annulled “by the highest administrative authority”, which is the mayor.

Thus reactivated the urban planning license for the ash heap. However, in the resolution, the deputy attorney left an exception so that “the granting authority of the LMU exercises its powers.” for that moment, Santiago Guarderas had been in the mayor’s office for nearly three months.

The current administrator of the North Zone, Gina Yángüez, took advantage of the window left open by Ivanoba and reviewed the process again. The February 4, 2022, days after the flood that killed 28 people in the sectors of La Gasca and La Comuna, Yángüez issued a resolution that extinguished the planning license, using some of the arguments of the first nullity declaration, such as the observation to Desintecsa.

Yángüez pointed out that although the Ministry of the Environment delivered a favorable viability certificate for Urkupamba, this happened after the planning license was granted, which would not be correct.

The official made serious remarks about how the processes have been developed. In the document he warned that “in the processing of authorizations Relevant aspects have been overlooked or ignored that emanate from the status of the area in which the project is located, which have been declared AIER protective forest and vegetation”. By not taking these aspects into account, says the official’s resolution, “is being ignored and contravened constitutional norms” on the rights of nature.

The critics

The Councilor Paulina Izurieta is one of the authorities that opposes the project and maintains that trees have been felled on the property. She said that, through a drone overflight, mounds of vegetation were observed that would be used for cover the cuts of the trunks.

On January 29, 2022, Izurieta was on site and took a soil sample, that is being analyzed by a private laboratory, to Examine if the ground is contaminated with chemicals. The results are expected in the following days. However, when asked which laboratory is examining the sample, the councilwoman replied that she could not reveal the name, at the request of the laboratory.

The inhabitants of at least eight sectors surrounding the property reject any claim to install a cemetery in the place. They have been doing it ever since the Mariana de Jesús Foundation tried to set up a cemetery.

The residents have organized themselves into the Barrios Unidos group, whose spokesperson, Kléver Chalá, showed photographs of branches and trunks of trees lying on the ground, which, according to what he said, were extracted from the slopes of Pichincha, within the land covered by the ashes.

“All the people who now go up (to Urkupamba) say they don’t see the destruction of the forest. This (the logging) happened a year ago. The forest has been destroyed with chainsaws, we have proof. They have been in charge, with chainsaws, of cutting the trees at ground level and planting grass there; That is how they have made the evidence invisible,” said Chalá.

Izurieta and Chalá have Doubts about how reports and permits were granted in favor of the company private. It is also incomprehensible to them that the 2018 PUOS allows the implementation of certain infrastructure in Ecological Protection/Natural Heritage Conservation areas considered zone A7.

The history

The 314-hectare property belonged to the Mariana de Jesús Foundation, which acquired it from Maria Augusta Urrutiathe Quito woman who also donated the land where La Carolina Park was built to the city.

Until the first decades of the last century, before passing into the hands of the Foundation, the place housed the farms La Granja and Rumipamba, also owned by Urrutia. Later, the Rumipamba quarry operated there for at least four decades, extracting large stones; of that paved roads and some infrastructure remain.

The Urkupamba Civil Society appeared formally on November 14, 2018, in accordance with the public deed of incorporation. The company does not belong to Andrés Carrasco, he is the manager and legal representative.

the founders They are Andrew’s father and wife: Marcelo Carrasco, with 5% shares; Y Patricia Arias, with 95%. The company was established with a capital of $3,000 and its purpose is four types of activities related to Funeral and/or burial and cremation servicescolumbariums (small niches to place urns with ashes inside large structures) and ashes; repair of remains for burial or cremation and embalming services and other funeral services; reforestation, among others.

For the year 2019, during January, the company appeared in the Mercantile Registry of Quito and obtained the Single Taxpayer Registry (RUC) in the Internal Revenue Service (SRI), according to documents to which this newspaper had access.

The purchase of the property where the ashes were planned to be installed was formalized on December 18, 2020 at Notary 67, located in Chimbacalle, in the south of Quito. The Mariana de Jesús Foundation sold the land to the Urkupamba Civil Society for $333,853, paid over an 18-month term, as stated in the purchase agreement.

Carrasco has denied all the accusations made about the initiative and the supposed forest felling. He maintains that the project will not have a severe environmental impact, rather, it will help stop the illegal expansion of human settlements in the area, which would be the real damage to the vegetation, he points out.

If the North Zonal Administration did not withdraw the planning license, it was expected that in mid-2022 the first works will begin of intervention. (I)