You would think that developers would be very much in tune with how people want to live; not just where they want to live, but in many cases, they are more in tune with how much money can be made, knowing that somebody will always buy the properties in question… even if they do eventually take the developer to court.

Compare, for example Carmenes del Mar with the classic, Cotobro residential area. The former is an exercise of building as many houses as possible in as little space possible, whilst still being able to sell it as an urbanisación. Yes, from Carmenes you can enjoy panoramic views, even if you are an eyesore yourself. We won’t even go into the stability of the structures and the sleep-losing cracks.

Cotobro; i.e., the latter, is a much older set up, beautifully dispersed, enjoying the stately peace that only cul-de-sacs and garden-set retreats can give you. The key here is that it is not over-developed but elegantly under-developed.

But what happens when a developer wants to get his teeth into Cotobro and slap in 66 ‘dwellings’ on a plot of land, even if in the cramming process a couple of green-belt strips would be allegedly gobbled up? You get, Ladies and Gentlemen, what is happening now; Cotobro residents trying to keep the brick interloper out whilst the said developer, once defeated by a one-plot-one-house ruling, now returning with the idea of, “OK, 66 dwellings in one building.”

Have we learnt absolutely nothing during the happily demised brick orgy that has left the country’s economy in rags?

Is it elitist to want to keep Cotobro just how it is? Well, if it is, then it makes many of us, who do not even own a property on Cotobro, elitists because Cotobro is a pleasure to walk around just the way it is.

We haven’t mentioned the name of the project – what is the point? Quite simply, the name doesn’t belong on this page anymore than the the ‘projected dwellings’ belong on Cotobro…

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