The Concejo Deliberante de Castelli unanimously approved the declaration of the need to sanction a Carta Orgánica Municipal. The decision constitutes a formal step toward local autonomy and supports the initiative promoted by Mayor Francisco Echarren. The announced goal is for the municipality to be able to define its own institutional, economic, and regulatory regime, with rules adapted to its characteristics.
The proposal aims to expand the municipal margin for making decisions in areas such as urban development, environment, health, and tax system. Currently, the 135 municipalities in Buenos Aires Province are governed by the Ley Orgánica de las Municipalidades, a common framework that does not allow them to enact a local statute. Castelli aims to become the first municipality in the province with its own Municipal Charter.
Echarren presented autonomy as a tool to bring public decisions closer to the neighbors and to improve the city's management capacity. After the vote, he highlighted the unanimous support of the deliberative body and stated that the process places Castelli before an unprecedented institutional opportunity. This assessment expresses the position of the mayor and the councilors who supported the declaration.
Approval does not yet equate to the sanctioning of the Municipal Charter. The process includes an electoral call to choose convention members, who will have the task of debating and drafting the statute. The election, the formation of the convention, and the discussion of the text open a sequence that could take years before producing a fully effective local regulation.
The initiative is supported by Article 123 of the Constitución Nacional, incorporated in the reform of 1994. That provision recognizes municipal autonomy and charges each province with ensuring its scope in the institutional, political, administrative, economic, and financial domains. Its application in Buenos Aires is the subject of a long-standing legal and institutional controversy, so the progress of Castelli could extend beyond the district.
The concrete fact is, for now, the unanimous declaration of the need to enact the Charter. Pending are the convening, the election of delegates, the drafting and approval of the text, in addition to possible debates about its framework within the Buenos Aires legal system. The sought autonomy is not complete: a political and institutional procedure has begun whose final scope will depend on those subsequent stages.
