Rest from the Bulldozers

Owners of illegally built homes in Marbella, are a little less worried after a court ruling gave a temporary stay of execution on demolitions in the town.
The Regional Supreme Court (TSJA) ordered that all demolitions of illegal buildings in Marbella be put on hold until the new local development plan (PGOU) is approved.
The region’s highest court says it wants the new PGOU to determine the exact legal status of each building and if the demolition order should be carried out or not. Indeed, it appears the court is passing responsibility to the regional government, saying that as this body has to approve the new PGOU, it should also decide what happens in many of the illegal developments.
The TSJA’s statement has been welcomed by the mayor of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz. She said that it gave her “great satisfaction and relief” that the court was supporting the stance that has consistently been taken by the Marbella administration.
Marbella now has a draft PGOU that is at the consultation stage. Incredibly, the municipality has not had a clear planning law since 1968. The 1986 development plan was approved but was not published and hence it did not come into effect until 2000, by which time Marbella had descended into planning chaos.
The court’s decision has been widely welcomed by officials in Marbella. The municipality’s spokesperson on town planning had argued for such a course of action, as had those who drew up the new PGOU. It also appears that the regional government’s Department of Public Works backs the proposal.
However, at least one group, Plataforma 29 de Marzo, which represents an array of citizen and environmental associations, spoke out against the court ruling, saying it was merely another example of indecision over what to do about the illegal buildings. The platform wants the teardown orders to be carried out.
Mijas town hall has also announced possible relief for the owners of many of the several hundred illegal homes in the town. The Mijas cases are not large illegal developments, but rather individual homes built on small plots of land in rural zones like La Alberquilla, Entrerríos, La Alquería and Valtocado.
The property owners have banded together to form an action group, which held a protest outside the Auditorio Municipal on Sunday. Now the mayor of Mijas, Antonio Sánchez, has promised that at the next council meeting he will present a proposal that will enable the majority of the properties to be legalised. He acknowledged that there are many cases where the house in question is the owners’ only home, and that the owners would be left in a very difficult situation in the event of demotion.
However, the mayor also stressed that the law must be complied with, and that homes built on public ways or in protected rural zones cannot be legalised and may face the possibility of eventual demolition.