Canillo Leader Defends Cautious Urban Plan to Curb Post-Covid Construction Boom

Jordi Alcobé, Canillo's consell major, has defended the parish's new Pla d’Ordenació i Urbanisme Parroquial (POUP) as a cautious and reversible approach to counter heightened construction pressures in recent years, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alcobé described the plan as a precautionary step to limit growth today and avert permanent harm to the parish's landscape, image, and social cohesion. He argued that the commune's policy of protection, conservation, and rational expansion remains flexible: if overly restrictive, it could be adjusted later. Unchecked development, by contrast, would commit future generations. "If we overbrake somewhere, that decision can be corrected in the future. But allowing intensive development now would mortgage the parish for generations," he stated.

He warned against yielding to free-market pressures that could lead to buildings or apartment blocks in sensitive areas such as Cap del Forn, Mereig, and Montaup. The POUP responds to a real estate landscape transformed over the past five years. "The pre-Covid and post-Covid eras are completely different," Alcobé said, calling for responsive and adaptable urban planning. "It's not about braking for the sake of it, but acting with precaution in a context that has changed radically."

To highlight reversal difficulties, he pointed to an unfinished building in Vall d’Incles that took 37 years to demolish. "Imagine tearing down an inhabited building," he said, noting the social and economic burdens. He challenged the idea of future high-rises near the Palau de Gel or on recently finished communal fields in central Canillo, asking who would dare demolish them later.

Alcobé supported measures like the planned Incles boundary to preserve options. High-rises like those in Escaldes, he said, belong solely in Andorra la Vella's centre. "In ten years, my children and my neighbours' children will live with it forever," he concluded, prioritising prudence now to enable corrections tomorrow.