Complaint filed over Paitilla Quarry

Complaint filed over Paitilla “Quarry”

A  PAITILLA BUILDING project  that has been riling residents for months,  is basically a quarry in the middle of a residential area says  a complaint filed with Panama’s Attorney General.

Lawyer Harley Mitchell has alleged that the developer of The Towers project on Avenida Winston Curchill is illegally removing non-metallic minerals from the site.

This is the latest in a series of complaints by residents in the area, including protests against the noise coming from the  construction site

Mitchell went to the Office of the Attorney General on Tuesday August 11 to ask for an investigation into the allegations. He also requested the immediate suspension of the project.

The project has a category 1 environmental impact study approved by the national environmental authority Anam (now The Ministry of the Environment),  but the complaint alleges that the developer has violated the study.

“The project is basically a quarry in the middle of a residential area masked as a construction project”, the complaint said.

It is not the first complaint filed over the project.

In February, the developer was fined $25,000 by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for the illegal extraction of rock. A month later, the Panama City Mayor’s Office and the Ministry of the Environment suspended the construction for the same reason.

Attorney Luis Carlos Vidal, the legal representative of developer Yavne Investment Corp. /Toledo Investment Corp., said that the complaint has no basis since his client has all the required construction permits and is in compliance with the environmental impact study.

He denied that the site is operating a quarry and said that the extracted materials are those of a construction of a multistory building.