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MEPs call on Spain to stop planning abuse
By m.p - Apr 11, 2007 - 10:32 PM
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The Petitions Committee has approved a report which is harshly critical of real estate development in Spain
The European Parliament’s Petitions Committee has approved the recommendations of a report which is harshly critical of real estate development in Spain, passing it with three votes against from the Partido Popular. Fifteen representatives voted in favour.

It comes after a fact-finding mission to Madrid, Valencia and Almería at the end of February, led by the Committee’s President, Marcin Libicki, and his Deputy, Michael Cashman, MEP. They investigated planning complaints from residents associations in all three areas.

The report concluded that ‘generalised’ real estate abuse exists in Spain, and that national, regional and local authorities did not stop planning abuses which, in some areas, it said, had increased urban populations to unsustainable levels.

The regional government in Valencia was most harshly criticised, for the authorities’ ‘most arrogant attitude.’ The report said that large areas of ‘beautiful and fragile’ coastline had been destroyed in the region.

The report’s conclusions after their Almería visit were that a ‘tacit agreement’ between the Town Hall and builders allowed the construction of several hundred illegal homes in Albox, most of which were later bought by British nationals: some 2,000 houses in the Almanzora Valley now face possible demolition.

It said that residents of the houses now identified as illegal did not receive proper advice from either the local authority, surveyors or from local lawyers. It points out that the Mayor of Albox is under investigation on the matter.

The text approved on Wednesday calls on the Spanish government, and in particular the regional government in Valencia, to define by law the criteria for ‘public use,’ and so prevent property rights being abused by the decisions of regional and local authorities.

It also asks the European Commission to investigate whether extensive development has infringed Community Law, or the rights and basic principles set out in the Treaty on European Union.


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