Agricultural land protection and planning: the uniqueness of the Valencia horta

Abstract

The enormous loss of agricultural land derived from the increase of urbanized and built land, the lack of coordination of territorial planning instruments and municipal planning in order to protect the peri-urban huerta of the city of Valencia, and the obsolescence of most urban development plans in Regarding the protection of non-urbanizable agricultural land, they have been determining factors for the progressive disappearance of agricultural land.
From a territorial point of view and urban planning, the different plans at European, regional and local level as instruments for integrating the peri-urban garden into public policies for land use planning are insufficient to recover abandoned agricultural land and adopt effective measures to stop the occupation of this valuable ecosystem. The dysfunctions of the municipal planning in review of the city of Valencia are shown with the recent plan of territorial action of sectorial character of the garden.
The regime of agricultural land established in the urban legal framework of the Valencian Community since 2014 and the particularity of Valencia’s huerta as a vulnerable landscape of regional importance, require the implementation of decided measures of preservation. In short, based on an adequate planning of the uses and activities in the non-urbanizable agricultural land at the regional and local levels, proactive measures of protection must be established to counteract the pressure of the metropolitan areas on these valuable spaces.