The new municipal administration is working on modifications to its urban-development paperwork in an attempt to get the Junta de Andalucia to allow the 5-star hotel in Santa Cruz, Sebastian to open. The Hotel Cercado de Santa Cruz has been inactive for the last four years, although 75% complete, owing to terrain-qualification irregularities.

If it had not been for these problems, it would have been the first 5-star hotel on the Costa Tropical, having opened in the summer of 2008 – but instead it stands dormant, with all the financial investment in it frozen, which has been ruinous for the developers/owners.

At present the hotel is immersed into two court cases, although one has already received a definitive ruling, resulting in the annulment of the Town-Council accord of the 3rd of August 2000, which authorised the building of the hotel on greenbelt land. In the worst of scenarios, this could result in a demolition order.

Almuñécar has asked for a ‘stay of order’ whilst a (legal) negotiated settlement is found that would avoid this and allow the hotel to open.

At the same time the Town Hall has entered into talks with the Junta to dissuade this regional authority from challenging the municipal building licence for the 7-star hotel in Cotobro. The ex-mayor, Juan Carlos Benavides, had granted a building licence just before the last local elections – in which he lost the mayoralty, but it was a very rushed arrangement and subsequently faulty.

The Junta consequently took legal steps against this licence and as a result, the hotel could be tied up in legal knots for years to come, without one brick being laid. The Mayor, Trinidad Herrera, wants to reach an agreement with the Junta to avoid precisely this.

So, the Town Hall is working on two fronts to unblock the administrative blockage on both the Hotel Cercado de Santa Cruz, with its 77 rooms, and the Hotel Bahia Fenicia, with its 180 rooms and projected 200 luxury dwellings to be built in three phases.

The Junta, for its part, is willing to withdraw its legal actions against the Cercado if the Town Hall modifies its development planning for the area on which the hotel sits. So far, the Town Hall has approval from the Consejeria de Cultura in Granada and is awaiting a favourable response from the Department of the Environment. If Almuñécar does receive a favourable report from this department, then it can go ahead and change the land category.

The Councillor for Urban Development, José Manueal Fernández, feels optimistic about the results and considers that both projects can be freed up in the next three months.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)