We were surprised to see the following article in La Opinion, but not in the Ideal, when you consider their enmity with Juan Carlos Benavides: The Public Prosecutor has accused the Mayor and three members of his municipal council (the ex Town-Hall Secretary, the Head of Urban Development and the Municipal Surveyor) of ‘favouring’ the building of several hotels within the township, with the help of modificaciones punctuales del PGOU (addendums to the PGOU). These additions to the PGOU permitted hotels to be built in places where a building of similar dimensions would not be permitted; i.e., the number of floors permitted or the number of square metres built upon in a given building plot.
According to the Public Prosecutor, Almuñécar lost ‘dozens of thousands’ of square metres of communal land; i.e., land that should have been used for social uses, or land that should have been destined for residential use.
The P.P. examined 14 such modificaciones puntuales in favour of hotels. In fact, a total of 89,500 sq/m of excessive brick and concrete went into several hotels, for which the P.P. is recommending that the excess be demolished. Coming on top of the threat of demolition on parts of the Hotel Bahía in Taramay, this would be a mortal blow for the towns ‘fleet of hotels.’
In at least three of the PGOU amendments, approved by the Mayor and the other two accused, land earmarked for residential use; i.e. housing, was changed to ‘exclusively hotel use only.’ Fruit of these modifications, were the old Sol Meliá, which now belongs to Grupo Hoteles Playa (approved on the 13th of May 1999) and the new hotel Playa Cotobro, which was opened to the public at the beginning of May this year. Furthermore, the Hotel Bahía II on the Avenida de Don Juan Carlos I was built on public land, officially set aside for social use, such as recreational, sporting or religious constructions. The loss of this communal building land was never compensated.
The ‘anything-goes’ attitude shown by the Town Hall towards hotels in Almuñécar has always been criticised in the Seaside Gazette and it is gratifying to see that something, at last, is being done about it, however tardy. It must be pointed out, to be fair, that this pampering of the hotel sector is not exclusive to Benavides because every political party approved the hotel expansion policy put forward in 1997, the result of which is this present situation. In fact, it seems that certain political parties ‘champion’ certain hotels while other ones oppose them, according to the political leaning of the local businessman behind them.