{"id":36644,"date":"2017-05-26T13:55:24","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T16:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=36644"},"modified":"2017-06-02T00:36:28","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T03:36:28","slug":"still-without-electricity-after-three-years-vila-hipica-meets-with-tijuca-park-to-discuss-its-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=36644","title":{"rendered":"Still Without Electricity After Three Years, Vila H\u00edpica Meets With Tijuca Park to Discuss Its Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, May 24 supporters of the nearly 80-year-old\u00a0H\u00edpica<\/a> community met in Parque Lage to dialogue with Tijuca Park<\/a> staff about the future of their community. The meeting began somewhat tense as Ernesto Viveiros de Castro, the Director of Tijuca National Park, acknowledged that there have been longstanding tensions between residents and Park administration. Efforts were made to ensure that discussions were succinct and respectful among the audience members, which included residents of H\u00edpica as well as residents of Horto<\/a>, Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a>, and Vale Encantado<\/a>. There was also representation from various governmental and non-governmental organizations such as the Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage<\/a> (IPHAN) and the Inter-Religious Movement of Rio de Janeiro<\/a> (MIR).<\/p>\n

Roberta Leoc\u00e1dio, responsible for the territorial consolidation of the Park, and Ernestro Castro, Director\u00a0of the Park, began the meeting with PowerPoint presentations of Tijuca Park\u2019s history with H\u00edpica and its stance on housing within the confines of the Park. The Park representatives blamed the current conflicts\u00a0on past\u00a0Park management\u2014acknowledging that while past administrations might have been tolerant of communities like H\u00edpica, new administrators\u00a0were no longer willing to be. The Director also denied that the Park was specifically targeting H\u00edpica when they restricted several houses\u2019 access to electricity three years ago<\/a> when the electrical grid was upgraded. Community supporters have pointed out that restaurants in the area maintain electricity and there were also\u00a0complaints about the construction of telecommunications towers\u2014reasoning that these are worse for the environment than housing. Ernesto defended the Park\u2019s actions by noting that according to the Park\u2019s regulations, there must be restaurants in the Park while there is no such mandate for allowing housing. Ernesto also maintained that the Park was also against these new developments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The immediate response after the presentation was frustration. Marcello Deodoro, a social activist, expressed his anger that nothing in the presentation talked of human rights<\/a> and that he was \u201cashamed\u201d of the Park\u2019s administration’ lack of respect towards\u00a0H\u00edpica residents. To highlight the human side of the issue, the president of the Association of Friends and Residents of Alto da Boa Vista that includes Vila H\u00edpica, Ot\u00e1vio Barros, spoke of two elderly residents who have died as a result of the cuts\u00a0to electricity<\/a>. Luci Rosa de Alcomtona presented the eviction notice and medical documents of her late father, telling the audience that his health deteriorated without access to electricity. Challenging the longstanding assertion that communities like H\u00edpica lead to environmental degradation and so therefore ought to be removed, Luci told the attentive audience that even though \u201cno one deforests,\u201d they are kept without light.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the moment, the case of H\u00edpica is tied up in what Ernesto called a \u201cjudicial imbroglio.\u201d Some audience members expressed their lack of faith in the judicial system. City Councilman Reimont stated\u00a0that the judge assigned to the case doesn\u2019t understand the lives of common people while another audience member held that if the\u00a0court upholds the eviction of H\u00edpica, any application of the law would be an \u201capplication of justice that isn\u2019t just.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite a tense discussion, the meeting ended on a positive note. Bettino Zanini from the Association of Friends and Residents of the Botanical Gardens (AMAJB), suggested having attendees, including the Park representatives present, send a protest letter that demands the electricity in H\u00edpica be turned back on, to be sent to the office of the attorney general\u00a0directly. Those concerned hope to have a response from the Park within one week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas On Tuesday, May 24 supporters of the nearly 80-year-old\u00a0H\u00edpica community met in Parque Lage to dialogue with Tijuca Park staff about the future of their community. The meeting began somewhat tense […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":36645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1854,1333,1329],"tags":[490,1495,11,884,26,2371,485,152,489,514,4,2383],"writer":[2374],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-housingwatch","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-by-international-observers","11":"tag-alto-da-boa-vista","12":"tag-eviction-tactics-canceled-services","13":"tag-forced-evictions","14":"tag-horto","15":"tag-housing-rights","16":"tag-iphan","17":"tag-light-electricity","18":"tag-participation","19":"tag-tijuca-forest","20":"tag-vale-encantado","21":"tag-vila-autodromo","22":"tag-hipica","23":"writer-jennifer-chisholm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36644"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=36644"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=36644"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=36644"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=36644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}