Most Andorra heritage sites lack legal protection perimeters

Susanna Vela, a Social Democratic general councillor and former minister of Culture, said defining legal protection perimeters around Andorra’s listed heritage sites has become “an extreme difficulty.” According to Vela, only 19 of the roughly 70 monuments on the bens d’interès cultural (BIC) list currently have legally established protection zones.

Vela recalled that the 2003 heritage law included an annex naming the assets to be protected and gave the government two years to draw up protection perimeters. She said that while that timetable was realistic in 2003, two decades of urban expansion have now reached the immediate surroundings of many monuments, making delimitations and adaptations much harder.

The obstacles are both technical and social. Vela highlighted the need to negotiate with affected property owners and to persuade them to carry out building improvements to make their properties compatible with nearby monuments. She also acknowledged shortcomings in the original law: the heritage service was not provided with sufficient technical staff to manage the lengthy, complex processes required.

Vela singled out a 2014 reform as a further setback. That amendment removed provisional 100‑metre precautionary radii and reduced them to 20 metres, a change she said makes it more difficult to protect surrounding buildings; by comparison, protection radii in France can reach 500 metres. The 2014 reform also transferred responsibility for managing the zone‑2 accompaniment area to the local councils (comuns). Vela described that shift as “a big mistake,” noting the reform was promoted by three comuns and that, since its approval, only four assets have had their protection zones finalised. She said the Heritage Studies Council had warned against the reform at the time.

The latest sites to start the protection process, currently still in the public appeals period, are the churches of Sant Miquel d’Engolasters and Sant Joan de Caselles. Both are slated to be included in a UNESCO nomination on the origin of the Coprincipality to be submitted next January. Earlier protection zones were finalised for Casa de la Vall and the church of Sant Esteve.

Vela argued that more human and technical resources are needed to complete the protections envisaged by the 2003 law and that the original two‑year deadline may have been overly optimistic given the work involved.