The Cieza City Council Plenary Session approved this Friday the suspension of the granting of building permits, both for new construction and for expansion or substantial renovation, for intensive livestock farms throughout the municipality of Cieza in order to study the reform of the Municipal General Urban Development Plan.
The City Council will also notify applicants for licenses requested prior to the publication of the suspension of the interruption of the licensing procedure, and will inform them of the right to be compensated for the cost of the projects and the refund of taxes paid if, once the reform of the PGMO has been definitively approved, the incompatibility of the project with its determinations is demonstrated.
The Councilor for Public Works, Francisco Saorín, emphasized that new livestock production systems, based on genetic selection, the selection of appropriate species for housing, overcrowding of animals in small spaces, and their complete independence from agricultural land, have led to the degradation of agricultural, landscape, and environmental resources in those areas where they have been established. Intensive or industrial livestock farming is an activity that, to date, has not received specific attention from the perspective of its territorial or regional implementation, despite having consequences beyond the geographic boundaries of a specific municipal area.
Saorín adds that "our General Plan has not singled out this type of activity, as its regulation is included in the general sections referring to livestock farming. Although we have general regulations governing construction aspects and the required distances between livestock facilities and inhabited or planned urbanized land, it is necessary to study this type of intensive or industrial livestock farming in depth and, consequently, provide ourselves with regulations that more precisely regulate this variant of "livestock use" so that its implementation in the municipality of Cieza can be carried out without negative impacts on the environment, without harming other economic activities, whether industrial or agricultural, and without inconvenience to citizens."
To this end, the Department of Urban Planning and Management has been commissioned to carry out the relevant studies and subsequently draft the proposed amendment to the Municipal General Urban Development Plan in those regulatory aspects necessary to better regulate the conditions for the establishment of intensive livestock facilities within the municipality. This department has reported that it is necessary to carry out an in-depth study of this type of intensive or industrial livestock farming and, given its complete independence from the agricultural land on which it is generally located, it considers it appropriate to voluntarily suspend the granting of building permits, both for new construction and for substantial expansion or renovation, for intensive livestock farms throughout the municipality of Cieza, pursuant to the provisions of Article 153 of Law 13/2015, of March 30, on territorial and urban planning of the Region of Murcia.