There's a controversy connected with the ex-VPOs (subsidised housing) at the entrance to La Caleta in Salobreña, or better said 'more' controversy.

The half-finished housing estate was snapped up by a developer from Granada in May called Oliva Premium S.L, however it has tiers to the PP candidate for Mayor, Rafael Bosh. And it’s not the first time that the Salobreña PP have been caught up in a development scandal; i.e., Urbanización Alminares.

The building company behind the estate is, Juan Collado, who is a Más Salobreña councillor and owner of Goyco Building. This company requested that the Town Hall drop the VPO category attached to the 46 dwellings in the housing estate. However, this request is not exactly popular with some members of the Town Council.

There have been heated Plenary Meetings that have not ended well; certainly not a fixed date to vote upon accepting or refusing the request.

The Urban Development Department at the Town Hall drew of a report as did the Legal Department on whether they could change housing that had received a building licence as subsidised housing or not. The 1989 PGOU (Urban Development Plan which has to be Junta approved) and its modification in the year 2000 contains no legal obligation on this plot of land having to be for VPOs, so there should be no problem changing the plot designation.

However, as it had been a municipal decision to provide cheap housing for young families, it requires a majority vote in a Plenary Meeting of the Town Council,  approval, which would including the building company paying compensation to the municipal coffers because of the special tax & licence cost reductions applied. The compensation need not be in money, however but could be in the form of ceded space for social services.

In fact, the Town Halls wants one of the ground-floor premises given over as a commercial premises and the development company offers a building for housing a municipal kindergarten and a public-health, doctor’s surgery. The Municipal Legal Advisory Department considers that removing the VPO status would rid the Town Hall of this lingering problem, once and for all.

The Town Hall considers that on condition of removing the VPO clause, the building company should give priority to families on the waiting list for housing, in which case, the price of the property should be lower than the actual housing-market price for properties of the same characteristics; i.e., at VPO prices. It seems that the company is disposed to accept this.

However, the problem is that some local politicians, with interests in the development/building company, stand to make a killing from an approval vote in a Plenary Meeting and that is just a bit tacky, to put it mildly