Bizarre Accusations

The Almuñécar, ex-town-hall Surveyor (arquitecto municipal) says that around 150 building licences, that he himself approved, are illegal. This might sound a strange claim to make, but it has its logic.

José Luis Rodríguez-Passolas was sacked by the present Mayor, virtually upon taking office, after he had occupied the post of Municipal Surveyor for nearly 30 years. The prime reason for this dismissal concerned the building permission that he authorized for his then wife in Cotobro, which clearly contravened and exceeded local building development laws. The Consejo Consultivo de Andalucía backed the Town Hall’s annulment of this controversial building licence, considering that the chalet had one floor too many .

In Cotobro the maximum is two storeys, whereas this house had three plus a tower. The ‘extra’ storey claimed to be a ‘basement’ and as such did not ‘count,’ even though most of it is above ground.

So, Sr Rodriguez-Passolas is claiming that by the same consideration there are 150 buildings in the municipality that have the same defect, implying that it was the norm before, which is why he gave them their building licences and first-occupation certificates. To be precise, in the case of 90, he calls for the annulment of the licence and 1st-occupation certificate and in the rest he says that documents are lacking.

With each one of these denuncias that he has submitted, he has included a photograph of the house and a description of its location, which includes houses in Cotobro, Los Pinos and Los Marinos, amongst other areas.

The reaction of the Town Hall has been one of complete surprise, saying, “It would be a barbarity if numerous occupied houses in the municipality are now declared illegal.” For the moment the Town Hall has rejected 50 of this batch and are “studying the other cases.” They consider that Sr Rodríguez is not only attempting to collapse the Urban Planning Office with this additional work load, but that he is also going to use this as ammunition in his ongoing legal issues over his wife’s house, even if it was he, himself, that OK’d these building licences.

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