City Hall takes joint action to demolish two irregular buildings in Mangueira

The action involved 70 agents from the municipal departments of Public Order, Conservation, Municipal Guard, Comlurb, CET-Rio and Military Police. Photo: Seconserva/City of Rio de Janeiro

The City Hall, through the Municipal Secretariats of Public Order (Seop) and Conservation (Seconserva), carried out an integrated operation on the morning of Wednesday, January 6, to demolish two irregular buildings in Mangueira, in the North Zone. Coordinated by Seop, the operation involved 1 agents, including teams from the Municipal Guard, Comlurb, CET-Rio and Urban Control, with support from the 70th Battalion of the Military Police, as well as Light and Cedae. Mayor Eduardo Paes, who was visiting the Ronaldo Gazolla Hospital in Acari at the time, praised the operation.

• The chaos is over, this business of building wherever you want in the city of Rio de Janeiro is over. I always see it this way: the poorest person, who is going through a hardship, doesn’t go out and build a house with concrete, two floors, bricks. They can’t. The Secretary of Public Order informed me yesterday that he would be doing an operation today, he sent me a photo of a huge house, it seems like it had already been reported in the press. There are many cases throughout the city. We will act very rigorously and quickly,” said Eduardo Paes, who inspected the 50 new beds for COVID-19 treatment made available to the population at Ronaldo Gazolla.

The municipal secretary of Public Order, Brenno Carnevale, explained that actions of this type will be common in the new City Hall administration.

– Irregular constructions like these make improper use of public space, pose risks to vehicle traffic and expose residents to insecurity. The City Hall will not tolerate this situation and will increasingly take actions of this type, through work based on the integration of agencies. SEOP will work together with the Conservation Department and the Department of Urban Planning to map these irregular constructions so that we can carry out operations intelligently – explained the secretary.

The municipal secretary of Conservation, Anna Laura Secco, was also present during the operation.

– A well-maintained public space includes more order and repression of irregularities. The Conservation Department provides all operational support to the Public Order Department, to ensure a more organized city – she said.

The two buildings were unoccupied. The first was located in a public area designated as a central flowerbed, at a point with a large flow of vehicles and connecting the descent of the Mangueira Viaduct, towards the city center, with Visconde de Niterói Street. City technicians had already suspended the construction, which consisted of a masonry floor and concrete structure. The second demolition was of a small masonry enclosure, where a kiosk was supposedly going to be built.

During the operation, a Seconserva backhoe was used for demolition and then the same equipment helped remove the debris from the site. In total, 20 tons of debris were removed.

Action brings down nine structures of houses and small buildings in the environmental protection area of ​​Guaratiba