Residents of Vila Autódromo Request Meeting with New Mayor to Discuss Pending Upgrades

…[On]...January 26, Vila Autódromo residents visited Rio de Janeiro’s City Hall to deliver an official letter requesting a meeting with the city’s new mayor, Marcelo Crivella, to discuss the second phase of the…upgrading plan for the community…not completed as promised by the previous administration. Residents were greeted by a city clerk who arranged to schedule the meeting for March. March will mark one year since the presentation of the current upgrading plan developed by Eduardo Paes’ administration after years of community struggle against eviction and for on-site upgrading. At the time residents condemned the lack of community participation in the Mayor’s plan’s design and presentation...[R]esidents were able to claim some changes in it that better reflected their needs, such as increasing the area of the houses…and including the construction of a Residents’ Association, sports court, playground and a cultural center…By the Olympics the houses and the street were ready, but the rest of the plan was uncompleted…