translated from Spanish: Government unveils plan to recover affected spaces in protests

The Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, Christian Monckeberg; the mayor of the Metropolitan Region, Felipe Guevara; and the mayor of Santiago, Felipe Alessandri, participated in the presentation of a plan to recover public spaces and urban infrastructure that was affected in the last weeks of protests. The initiative features the development of a damage cadastre in the affected communes, an economic proposal for recovery projects, and a bill to accelerate the improvement of public spaces. For the recovery of damages is considered a total of $10.4 billion of investment via budget year 2019, and the proposal for attention via budget 2020 totaling $4.8 billion. Mayor Guevara highlighted the investment, which is in addition to the $5.5 billion pertain fund for the Metropolitan Regional Government’s 5% emergency fund, which will be used to repair urban furniture, traffic lights and signage, and the efforts of the Ministry of Economics to help the 2,094 vandalized locals in the Región.De fact, stated that “what President Piñera has asked us to do is to return the city to the neighbors, that they can reuse the public spaces, the streets, let there be football, that there is a spectacle. Anyway, let the city start working again.” For his part, Alessandri stated that “here there is a very important effort of the Ministry of Housing to dispose of just over $10 billion and $5 billion next year of funds that go directly to the heart of the neighbors. Because here they can apply for these funds are not only the municipalities, it is the boards of neighbors, it is the sports clubs, they are the social organizations that want to repair their square, their neighborhood, the intimate space they use as a family, as neighbors”. Finally, Minister Monckeberg stated that “from the Government and the Ministry of Housing we will start an effort between all of us, understanding that there is a lot of destruction of public spaces, of the places where people attend, and we want to start a process of recovery from that public space. And we’re going to make that recovery together. On the one hand the municipalities and the mayors, on the other the regional governments”.

Original source in Spanish