Original article: Rodrigo Mundaca reiteró sus críticas a Iván Poduje en foro sobre el derecho a la ciudad: «Un ministro prepotente, que actúa como un patrón de fundo» Rodrigo Mundaca Criticizes Iván Poduje at Urban Rights Forum: «A Bullying Minister Acting Like a Plantation Owner» Valparaíso Regional Governor Rodrigo Mundaca has reiterated his criticisms of Housing Minister Iván Poduje, questioning his treatment of residents and labeling him as a «bullying minister who behaves like a plantation owner». Mundaca made these remarks at the «Right to the City» forum, organized by the Center for Public Policy Studies on Territory and Community, which also featured former presidential candidate Jeannette Jara, spokesperson for the Movement of Residents in Struggle, Natalia Garrido, and La Cisterna Mayor Joel Olmos. Initially, the regional authority focused his presentation on the urgent need for Chile to adopt a Framework Law on Territorial Planning, which would «move beyond» the current General Law of Urbanism and Construction enacted during the dictatorship in 1975.
He expressed that in Chile, «today, urban quality of life is treated as a market commodity, and what I want to encourage is that from the perspective of urban planning, we need to rethink the urbanization of territories and move away from that classic idea of urbanization». In his view, this concept is responsible for creating megacities where a significant population remains unable to access essential services, resulting in pockets of poverty on the outskirts of urban areas. For Rodrigo Mundaca, these issues are structural: «In the Valparaíso region, 68.
5% of the 38 municipalities are subjected to some type of regulation, and 30% of them, that is, 11 out of 38 municipalities, have regulatory plans that are less than ten years old. In other words, there are 27 municipalities with no valid communal planning regulations. » In this context, he highlighted that «as a regional government, we are generating a regional development strategy that includes 7 axes, 15 strategic objectives, and 62 action lines.
When we examine the development axes, we discuss the ecosystems of common natural goods, social justice, human development, heritage, habitability, and mobility. We also address sustainable local economic development and planned regional territory governance». This approach is needed, added the Governor of Valparaíso, «because we have a perspective of territory that relates to changing the conceptualization of urbanization of cities and moving towards the urbanization of territories».
«Unfortunately, and this is one of our proposals, Chile currently lacks a Framework Law on Territorial Planning. For councilors and mayors, the most critical proposal today is to move past the General Law of Urbanism and Construction, which was crafted during the dictatorship in ’75, and to think directly about a Framework Law on Territorial Planning». According to Mundaca, this legislation should account for «the particularities of the territory, demographic expansion, and recognizes that this needs to be planned in accordance with the physical and economic growth of our communities».
«This is a fundamental discussion,» he emphasized, detailing in this regard that «on March 4, 2026, President Boric’s government enacted the Regional Territorial Planning Plan (PROT), granting this prerogative to regional governments. The issue is that the PROT is like a toothless animal because it has no prerogative over territories that are already regulated and planned, unlike what happens in the Metropolitan Region». «That is to say, the PROT’s only prerogative is to intervene in those territories that are not regulated.
Basically, it addresses the coastal border and those peri-urban or rural areas that lie outside communal and intercommunal regulatory plans,» he added. Mundaca pointed out that «when you transfer a competency of this nature, which is formal but lacks substance, ultimately the vision of the current government, as well as the previous one, continues to prioritize this urbanistic view of territories, which fundamentally concerns urbanizing cities without considering the territory from an ecosystem perspective». Shifting the Scale of Thought At this point, the Governor of Valparaíso stressed that there is «a fundamental problem when discussing urban expansion today, in a region like ours, which has the highest number of camps and irregular settlements in the country, and where we probably have the largest occupation in Chile, in Cerros Centinela of San Antonio, with 4,400 families living there.
The previous government had managed, in quotes, to eradicate more than 40% of that population, but left it pending». «The question that arises today is: does the State take responsibility for re-signifying the place where these people want to live? Will it provide them with essential services to settle in that area?
Or are they simply criminalized for re-signifying the place where they wish to reside? This is a structural problem in Chilean society, the right to housing and to dignified neighborhoods, because it is not just about concrete or construction materials but about building dignified neighborhoods,» Mundaca stated. At this point, the regional authority emphasized that it is «very important today to change the scale of thought, and this also relates to how we generate public policies that center not just on housing construction but also on the harmonization of territories».
Critiques of Poduje Regarding this matter, Rodrigo Mundaca criticized the prevailing view in the new administration of Kast, where «43 environmental decrees are withdrawn, because this government understands, or believes, that there is a dichotomy between people and trees, when in fact one of the major challenges facing modernity and Chilean society is to create a development model that is economically viable and competitive but also socially just and more ecologically sound». «In that context, the construction of dignified housing and neighborhoods does not require toothless instruments like the PROT, but rather a Framework Law on Territorial Planning, with intermediate development agencies and decisive participation from civil society,» he emphasized. However, the prospect of realizing this necessity seems distant for Mundaca, as he stated, «today we have a housing minister who is bullying, acting like a plantation owner, and we have told him publicly, who takes the liberty of insulting residents who have fought for years to live in decent housing and neighborhoods».
Mundaca added that Poduje «acts with a bullying demeanor typical of someone who can claim that he cannot expropriate Colonia Dignidad because his competencies at Minvu do not allow it, when we know that the message he sends to Chilean society is deeply ideological, where human rights and the memory of those who fell fighting against the dictatorship matters very little».