The Supreme Court has handed down its finding on the appeal made over the excessive structure on the Bahía Hotel, Taramay. They have left it in the hands of the claimant whether the offending part should be demolished.
When Manuel Hidalgo and his mother saw the hotel going up, completely blocking his sea view, he was not impressed; so much so that he decided to sue the hotel. Nobody believed he would have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning – but they were all wrong.
Ten years further down the line the Supreme Court has given their final verdict, against which there can be no appeal. They basically, said, “Manolo, my old mate, it’s up to you whether it comes down or not!”
Fast rewind and we come to the 14th of July, 2001, which was when the hotel, popularly known as the Hotel de los Futbolistas, because several members of Real Madrid were interested in investing in it, opened its doors. But Manolo and mum had already started suing the hotel because its dimensions were greater than what the urban development permitted.
Years dribbled past and Manolo scored his first goal; on the 12th of February 2007 the Tribunal Superior de Justicia sentenced that the municipal building licence for the hotel be annulled. Furthermore, it sentenced that the ‘unofficial extra’ should be demolished.
On November 2008, the same regional high court sentenced that no appeal would be accepted from the Town Hall or the hotel owners – their decision was final, but there was one more thing to achieve, which was to have the modification to the PGOU that permitted the hotel to be revoked, which is what happened this year, if you remember, when we reported that the swarm of modificaciones puntuales that permitted hotels to spring up like mushrooms all over the town. The TSJA said that this procedure, which is normally valid had been abused, amounting to virtually a new, unofficial PGOU: 18 modicaciones puntuales had permitted an extra 89,590 sq/m to be built, which could hardly be described as ‘fine tweaking’ of the standing PGOU.
So, Manolo, an architect by profession, who has spent the last ten years brushing up on the laws that cover urban development, has announced that he will wait one month and if nobody has come to talk to him, he will file for a demolition order on the approximately 10,000 sq/m excessive construction. In other words, the hotel company either offers something ‘very interesting’ to Manolo or the bulldozers move in.
(News, Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)