Costa Blanco News 25 1 2008: Properties under threat
Two sides to the demolition story
By Dave Jones and Alex Watkins
SOMETIMES it appears that there are any number of reasons the authorities can give to demolish a property in Spain.
Homeowners can be the victims of land grab laws, compulsory purchase orders for public infrastructure or illegal building.
There are also those who bought houses in areas deemed to be protected land, either on the coast or in natural parks.
This week dozens of south Costa Blanca home owners were facing up to the threat of losing their homes as two very different situations unfolded in which demolition is being touted as the only option.
Near the village of La Marina in Elche around 50 homeowners have been hit by LUV land grab law.
Elche council is pressing forward with a plan to turn a coastal area into a nature park with a new urbanisation next to it.
Residents living on land planned for the park and the urbanisation – some in properties which are more than 100 years old – have been told their houses will be knocked down to make way for the scheme.
At the same time the owners of around 120 properties which line Playa Babilonia in Guardamar del Segura are preparing for their chalets to be bulldozed.
Unlike the Elche scheme, this forms part of the government’s plan to rid Spain’s coast of saturation development by demolishing properties deemed to be invading the seafront.
The environment ministry is making use of the 1988 Ley de Costas (Coast Law) which was brought in to guarantee public use of the sea shore – and to save it from property speculators.
The law states that the coast ‘should be preserved to allow all citizens to be able to use and enjoy it’.
The houses in Guardamar del Segura have been built on the beach – and many are holiday homes which are not occupied full time.
News of the demolitions comes hard on the heels of the case of Len and Helen Prior which was reported in CB News last week.
Their 490,000-euro villa in Vera was knocked down despite the fact that they had title deeds, building licences and the property had been constructed more than four years ago on 10,060 square metres of land.
Home owners in Catral have also been living under the threat of demolition after the regional government announced in 2006 that 1,270 villas had been built without planning permission in the countryside.
Some were handed a reprieve last month when a total of 40 demolition orders were suspended.
djones@cbnews.es
awatkins@cbnews.es
By Dave Jones and Alex Watkins
SOMETIMES it appears that there are any number of reasons the authorities can give to demolish a property in Spain.
Homeowners can be the victims of land grab laws, compulsory purchase orders for public infrastructure or illegal building.
There are also those who bought houses in areas deemed to be protected land, either on the coast or in natural parks.
This week dozens of south Costa Blanca home owners were facing up to the threat of losing their homes as two very different situations unfolded in which demolition is being touted as the only option.
Near the village of La Marina in Elche around 50 homeowners have been hit by LUV land grab law.
Elche council is pressing forward with a plan to turn a coastal area into a nature park with a new urbanisation next to it.
Residents living on land planned for the park and the urbanisation – some in properties which are more than 100 years old – have been told their houses will be knocked down to make way for the scheme.
At the same time the owners of around 120 properties which line Playa Babilonia in Guardamar del Segura are preparing for their chalets to be bulldozed.
Unlike the Elche scheme, this forms part of the government’s plan to rid Spain’s coast of saturation development by demolishing properties deemed to be invading the seafront.
The environment ministry is making use of the 1988 Ley de Costas (Coast Law) which was brought in to guarantee public use of the sea shore – and to save it from property speculators.
The law states that the coast ‘should be preserved to allow all citizens to be able to use and enjoy it’.
The houses in Guardamar del Segura have been built on the beach – and many are holiday homes which are not occupied full time.
News of the demolitions comes hard on the heels of the case of Len and Helen Prior which was reported in CB News last week.
Their 490,000-euro villa in Vera was knocked down despite the fact that they had title deeds, building licences and the property had been constructed more than four years ago on 10,060 square metres of land.
Home owners in Catral have also been living under the threat of demolition after the regional government announced in 2006 that 1,270 villas had been built without planning permission in the countryside.
Some were handed a reprieve last month when a total of 40 demolition orders were suspended.
djones@cbnews.es
awatkins@cbnews.es
posted by Charles Svoboda at
12:29 PM
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