Two opposite faces: the Mayor’s Office of Cali and the owners of the project to convert the old religious cloister La Sagrada Familia into a hotel with a shopping center, in the west of the city.
This is one of the oldest schools in the capital of Valle del Cauca, which was created in the heart of the El Peñón neighborhood in 1907. A century passed until 2013 to think of a project that could attract employment to the city with a hotel and a shopping center .
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The Sisters of Providence and the Immaculate Conception accepted the sale proposal to those who came up with the initiative to start this transformation.
It was in that 2013 that part of the rear side of La Sagrada Familia school disappeared so that the change desired by the new owners, the firm Jero SAS, which announced in that year a significant investment to open the hotel and the shopping center, would begin there.
In that 2013 a construction license was processed and in 2014 work began, according to information from the Undersecretary of Patrimony of the Secretary of Culture of Cali.
The dependency is responsible for the preservation of the architecture considered heritage for the city and the Nation.
The building of the old La Sagrada Familia is a type 2 conservation heritage, as it appears consigned in the Territorial Ordering Plan (POT), of Cali. Overseeing their care depends directly on the District.
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But since then a scuffle has arisen between the mayors on duty and the owners of the land. The reason, according to Cultural Heritage of Cali3,386 square meters that would be too much in the back of the cloister and claims that the structure exceeded the five floors allowed with two basements.
Now, the Secretary of Security of Cali, Carlos Soler, indicated that what is left over must be demolished and that this is stated in an order set on November 16, 2018. Already on May 5, 2015, it had been ordered to suspend construction.
According to the owners of the place, they presented a license modification in 2017 but it was not approved by the then Secretary of Culture of Cali, Luz Adriana Betancourt, and the director of Municipal Planning, María de las Mercedes Romero. Both faced a process in the Attorney General’s Office for such a decision and in 2021, the case was closed in favor of the former officials.
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Soler said that the demolition had to be carried out and it was not done, and now the municipality could face a demand for more than 60,000 million pesos. Likewise, according to the Undersecretary of District Patrimony, the only license so far in the work would be that of 2013.
“This order would have to be fulfilled because what is at risk for the Mayor’s Office of Cali is an administrative demand for more than 60,000 million pesos, the expiration of the action being close to being fulfilled, that is, the penalty for not having executed the November 2018 resolution,” Soler said.
But the owners’ lawyer, Hernando Morales, assured that this is not true and that the license modified in 2017 was approved.
He argued that positive administrative silences came from the district, taken as favorable in the process. Morales said that what had to be built had already been done and only painting repairs would remain.
He assured that the 85 percent raised in works was not done. For this reason, he affirmed that what should be demolished is ‘up in the air’.
“It is an irresponsible act. The secretary only looks for the media issue. The ruling nowhere says that, the ruling does not order anything and he does not have the power to say what he is saying. Secretary Soler says that there are processes, but the process It has not finished. Where do you say that others were built? “, Asserted the lawyer Morales.
However, Soler mentioned court orders that would agree with the Mayor’s Office that part of the rear building be removed, citing decisions of the 11th Administrative Court of Cali and the Contentious Administrative Court. At the time, the alarms went off for the conservation of what is still standing on the old property.
To the calls of the Society of Public Improvements and members of the Colombian Society of Architects, Valle region, were added those of the Ombudsman of Cali and the Council to avoid damage to heritage.
“The project attorney files a modification to the license and makes a request for the Heritage concept to modify. They filed it in 2019. That request went to the Curatorship, it asked Heritage and asked: Is there a favorable concept? And Patrimony answered: There is not. What did the Curator say? There is no license ”, they reported in Heritage. Given the administrative silences, for the Mayor’s Office, “they are valid, if urban regulations are not violated.”
‘18,207 meters had been authorized for the construction of the Sagrada Familia in Cali’
For the Valley Regional Architects Society, there is concern about the heritage value and the changes with a hotel and a shopping center, which included a convention center, a supermarket and movie theaters for 80 people.
Initially, 18,207 square meters would have been authorized and the area built in 2019 totaled 21,594 square meters, according to the Mayor’s Office at the time. The changes were reviewed in 2016 by Planning of Cali. In 2017 the works were suspended.
According to the owners of the land, the investment has already exceeded 75,000 million pesos.
The project directors have reiterated that there will be progress for Cali with more employment, the arrival of signatures and the heritage is being recovered.
The director of local Planning, Roy Barreras, has maintained that he is not seeking to avoid employment or projects that can attract resources, but he has insisted that all impacts must be analyzed.
CALI
