It is almost a case of locking the stable doors after the horses have bolted, but the Junta is now determined to protect what virgin coastline remains after the building boom.
According to the Junta‘s records, on the Costa Granadina (Costa Tropical) there remain around 1,000 hectares of building land that has not be used todate. With the ‘Plan for the Protection of the Coastal Corridor,’ the Junta hopes to protect the first 500 metres of the coast from the shore line and where it encounters this unused building land, it is liable to re-categorize it as green-belt land.
Fortunately, the eastern end of the Costa Tropical is pretty much untouched, whereas the western end is heavily developed, meaning that there is little that the Junta can do about this end.
The new law will not affect towns with their PGOU (municipal urban development plan) already approved providing that the land has developers interested in it, but in the case of Almuñécar, for example, the PGOU has still not been approved, which means that it will be hard hit by the new law.
According to the Head of the Board for Agriculture, Fishing and The Environment, Gloria Vega, the Costa Tropical has around 3,000 dwellings planned within this 500-metre margin, one third of which belong to Almuñécar/Herradura.
These projected dwellings are concentrated in the P-6 (La Herradura) – the last bit of agricultural land on the beach, next to the mouth of Río Jate, more or less where the castle is; The plan parcial for La Cabria in Taramay; and the plan parcial for the Barranco de Enmedio.
In the case of La Cabria, on paper it’s virgin land but in reality it is dotted with chalets and ‘cortijos,’ many of which have been around for donkey’s years and will have to be legalized.
In the case of the Barranco de Enmedio, it is closer to being virgin land with only a couple of old cortijos on it, which can be seen from the main road.
The fact is that many people bought land because the standing PGOU, dating back 30 years, considers it land for development, so if the Junta does turn it back to green-belt land, there will be one or two quite disappointed landowners.
The Almuñécar Town Hall, under the PP, does not want the socialist Junta telling them where they can build, so they will be fighting this projected law, however, it is a pity that the law didn’t turn up 20 years ago and would have prevented some of the barbarities that have sprung up within Almuñécar’s municipal boundaries.
As for Almuñécar’s PGOU in-the-pipe-line, it is still to be adapted to the POTA (regional law which places limitation on urban growth), which lays down that a PGOU can not exceed a 30% increase in population nor 40% in urban area – the Benavides PGOU was three times over that limit, hence the need to cut the PGOU right back so that it can be given the final approval. Until then, Almuñécar is stuck with the oldest standing PGOU on the coast; 1986.
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(news: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)