The Asunción Municipal Board approved two preliminary plans that use the exceptionalities regime to build 11- and 18-story towers in the residential neighborhoods of Virgen del Huerto and Las Lomas, respectively. The projects, with the approval of the Planning, Urbanism, and Territorial Order Commission, allow for a 40% increase in built area compared to what is permitted by the zoning.
Councilor Pablo Callizo led the opposition to the 18-story project in Las Lomas, located between Molas López, San Martín, and Aviadores streets. He told Última Hora that the exceptionality, provided for in the Regulatory Plan, has ceased to be an exception and become recurrent, with up to seven such projects approved annually as a maximum, often without adequate technical criteria. Callizo warned that the new tower will be built in the heart of an already collapsed zone, near the Shopping del Sol, where traffic and infrastructure are overloaded.
Councilors Paulina Serrano, Rosanna Rolón, and Álvaro Grau also expressed opposition. Grau explained to the newspaper that he questioned the exceptionalities regime itself, stating that the benefit is granted unequally, driving up housing costs and privileging investors without a clear return for the city. He cited as an example a project on Mariscal López and San Martín avenues that, approved for 15 stories, ended up with 39.
Grau highlighted that 85% of Asunción's streets are past their useful life, with collapsed drainage, low water pressure, and chaotic traffic – problems that intensify with new high-density developments. None of the approved reports detailed requirements that beneficiaries must meet to enjoy the exceptionality.
A third project, for a 25-story tower in the Recoleta neighborhood, was blocked after a motion by Callizo obtained ten votes against. The councilor justified this by saying the area, although commercial, cannot support such high density because it is within a neighborhood and not on a main avenue.
The approvals highlight the tension in Asunción between real estate development and infrastructural capacity, with legislators warning that the systematic granting of exceptionalities worsens urban chaos without clear benefits for the population.