Eco Real State meets the Government owing to the division proposal of plots of land for conservation
The discussion around the subdivision of rural lands, which has lasted for the last months, has confronted lot traders with the Ministry of Agriculture again this week.
The trade union, Chile Rural, gave the initial impulse through a request made to the justice to issue an arrest warrant against secretary Esteban Valenzuela and the authorities at Servicio Agricola Ganadero(SAG). The reason? According to the trade union, there is an alleged breach of the cautionary action ordered by the 7th Civil Court invalidating SAG’s instructions which suspended the land division certifications over a month ago.
The debate was reinstated on the agenda just a few days after the Government sent a bill to Congress for it to establish rules for plot subdivisions, clear up the tax situation and reduce the environmental damage that, according to the Government, this custom could be causing in different zones of the country.
The draft bill is being prepared by Comité Interministerial de Ciudad, Vivienda y Territorio (COMICIVYT), an organization that coordinates permanently 12 ministries whose CEO is Pablo Contrucci.
In this context, Felipe Escalona, CEO and founder of The Real Eco State, held a meeting with Contrucci at COMICIVYT a couple of weeks ago to expound the company’s experience with the subdivision of rural plots of land in the region of Aysén. The company, formerly called Activo Austral, ceased this name and started to run an office in New York, focuses on selling projects with conservationist and non-residential purposes.
With this in mind, each of its projects is under the Conservation Easement (DRC), a regulation that assures legally and perpetually the conservation of flora, fauna, and other characteristics of the traded land. In five years, The Real Eco State has sold lots of land for conservation purposes in Chilean Patagonia, equivalent to the area of Santiago city, with an increasing number of clients from the US and other countries.
Escalona proposed to separate this type of subdivision from the others in the draft bill and sent a document a couple of days after explaining this issue in depth at Contrucci’s request. In the letter, Escalona proposes COMICIVYT to encourage this type of land divisions in the Executive's project, under the criterion that, contrary to what happens in the rest of the country- the purpose of it is neither build smallholdings nor develop these zones to conserve the land as it is.
In addition, he requests a public institution (possibly The Ministry of Environment) to be in charge of supervising the actual compliance of the Conservation Easement, since nowadays, this action can be exclusively requested through the justice court by the foundation or private entity which holds The Conservation Easement (DRC). Finally, he proposes to include tax incentives to increase investment in the conservation of nature in Chile.
Source: El Mercurio
