The Asociación de Empresarios de Nerja (AEN) are not happy with the Maro Golf project, or better said, the modification to urban planning modifications.

The urban-planning adjustments were approved in April in order to reassign 250 hectares of farmland on the Vega de Maro to urban development. Sociedad Azucarera Larios, which owns this land (and much more) wants to build luxury hotels, shopping areas and 680 dwelling, as well as the 18-hole golf course.

To sell this to the general public, emphasis is put on the fact that it has a budget of 311 million and would supposedly create 1,600 jobs in a space of ten years.

However, according to the AEN, “with this agreement that has been signed, there is a high risk that the correct development of the town’s tourism-sports sector is not achieved,” adding that to change the residential-tourism model also creates a risk.

AEN Chairman, Juan Carlos Pinilla, went on to point out that “typology contained [in the agreement] is somewhat similar to the Barriada El Chaparil.»

For the above reasons the AEN wants the number of dwellings permitted reduced by a third, or better said, the build quota on the said land. This would mean that instead of 680 dwellings, the build quota would ‘only’ permit 456.

But it doesn’t stop there because the AEN also wants the height; i.e., number of floors, reduced: “our much valued residential-tourism model has a predominance of 2-storey buildings and a minimal percentage of 3-storey ones,” said the Chairman, continuing, “permitting four storeys, you move into the typical, boring depersonalised blocks of flats.”This would change the model that characterises Nerja and gives the town its attraction, he concluded.

The Town Hall cites examples of urbanisations that have a maximum density of dwellings just under five, yet the Larios project wants to have one of 15 dwellings, which is why the AEN wants it reduced to ten; i.e., by a third.

With respect to the projected golf course, the AEN says that the whole urban-development modification can only be justified with the golf course included because without it, it makes no urbanistic sense to build the dwellings.

The AEN points out that the present PGOU (General Urban Development Plan) still has plenty of room for building in areas that do not have such a high, visual impact. If the golf course does not go ahead it is justification for suspending the project, considers the Chairman.

Editorial comment: obviously the AEN is well aware that right across Spain golf courses and marinas have been used as an excuse to build housing projects on greenbelt land only for the housing to go up and the golf course to be “regrettably unfinished” or even started. Hence, the comment that no golf-course, means no housing, full stop.

(News: Maro, Nerja, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia).