Andorra la VellaThe Official Association of Architects of Andorra (COAA) has responded to the accusations of the consuls regarding the complaints about urban plans and the difficulties in hiring technicians to take part in urban reviews. Prior to the holding of an extraordinary assembly, the COAA issued a statement this Monday warning that the entity’s ethical standards “do not constitute any impediment to the participation of members in the POUP reviews”.
Likewise, they warn that “the real problem lies in the lack of calling for public tenders, as has usually been done with the revisions of POUP, in accordance with the public procurement law”. This fact, therefore, “reflects the lack of will of the communes to hire professionals from the country following the Andorran legal framework”.
In more detail, the COAA states that four communes have directly hired non-resident architects without authorization to practice in the country, in breach of what is established by the law on qualified professions. “This action is considered extremely serious, as it involves a direct violation of current regulations and calls into question compliance with the legal and professional guarantees required by current laws”, they regret.
Likewise, they point out that the ethical rules are established by agreement of the assembly, which is the collective’s sovereign body for these types of issues and where all registered architects actively participate. In this sense, “it is important to emphasize that we as registered architects are the first interested in avoiding unjustified limitations in our professional practice”.
Article 16 of these ethical rules, they continue, contemplates a precautionary measure in building activities, according to which the member who writes a POUP or its review “can continue to carry out his usual activity” . However, it is established that, during the three years following the approval of the planning, “there cannot be an irregular increase in the targeted surface with respect to the activity prior to the drafting of this, nor draw up derivative planning “. In no case, they judge, “the article prohibits the realization of projects within the same parish where the review is carried out”.
This condition, “contrary to what has been published and expressed in the media, does not mean any impediment for the members to carry out revisions of the POUP, and thus it was confirmed again and unanimously in yesterday’s assembly”. In fact, they say that since these conditions have been in force, “different registered architects have carried out revisions of POUP with total normality, and there is a clear desire to participate on the part of the country’s professionals in the drafting of town planning plans”. The most recent example, they add, is this summer’s call for a review of the POUP made by a common, in which at least six members of the COAA appeared.
Finally, the COAA emphasizes that it does not know the sources of information used by the communes to reach “these erroneous conclusions about this article”, and they recall that in the meeting held between the communal leaders and the members of the COAA Board, ” the commitment was made to transfer the neguites to the collegiates, and this was done in the extraordinary assembly that took place yesterday, where, by unanimity, the application of the deontological norms was ratified of the COAA”.