Chile Expands Its Efforts to Preserve Ancient Churches

Chile will expand the protection of 16 churches in the southern archipelago of Chiloe to ensure that urban development does not encroach on structures which together constitute a U.N.-certified World Heritage Site.

The idea is to carry out a re-zoning that “will comprise the protection of the building’s surrounding area and not just the building itself,” Chile’s secretary of National Monuments, Jose de Nordenflycht, said in an interview with Efe.

The new concern is a result of the construction of Paseo Chiloe Mall, a massive six-story shopping center in Castro, Chiloe’s capital, that overshadows the Church of San Francisco, a 16th-century structure.

A 2013 report by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said the mall has a “negative impact” on the church.

If by 2015 the situation is not improved, UNESCO said it would consider adding the San Francisco church to the list of Endangered World Heritage Sites.

The mall project has been the subject of several controversies after irregularities were detected and dozens of lawsuits forced the developers to reduce the number of levels and cover the building with wood siding.

A survey showed, however, that 94 percent of the local population supported the project.

De Nordenflycht expressed “great concern about the future of the 15 other churches” in the archipelago and hopes a new bill to be introduced in Congress in 2016 “will guarantee” that the situation created by the mall in Castro will not be repeated.

“Most probably on an island there will not be another commercial or infrastructure project of such magnitude, but there could be extractive industries, such as salmon fisheries, that from the sea might cause visual contamination or affect the areas around the churches,” he said.

“We keep working with the Housing Ministry and the municipal administration to lay down a community regulation taking into account the heritage” in Castro, he said.

As the re-zoning will not be retroactive, Castro’s mall is there to stay.

Published in Latino Daily News