El Mundo March 6th

The Cabinet of Studies of the Nature of Axarquia GENA-Ecologists in Action has warned Saturday about the serious consequences of the decree of “urban amnesty” announced by the Board to regulate more than 11,000 homes on undeveloped land in the Axarquia (Malaga) .

GENA president, Rafael Yus, explained in a statement that the Board’s decision is contrary to existing laws and leaves the region “in a very dangerous situation for criminal acts related to land use.”

According to Yus, the decree of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing clashes with the Urban Planning Act of Andalusia (LOUA) in several respects, including the requirement of agricultural, livestock and forestry use to justify a house on rural land or the rules set this legislation to prevent the formation of “new urban settlements.”

Also, environmentalists believe that the regional government is based on considerations of Spatial Plan (ETP) of the Axarquia to indicate that a group of houses in the inventory can not be legalized, to be in areas of special protection.

“But forget those protections landscape in most homes that have been inventoried as possible to be developed,” added Yus, who has said that the decree of the Board, will create “an unavoidable precedent that will make it difficult or impossible act on the urban builds ”

“Anyone can build a home, with or without municipal license, because in the end, it will be legalized, and for the same reason, there is no impediment for some real estate or even the councils themselves, scheduled low-density developments in the field to make a profit, “said the president of GENA.

Yus also regretted that the Department did not clarify whether to demolish the homes that can not be legalized and has stated that “no one believes that a municipality will have the audacity to take a house down with the electoral cost that this entails “.

“Late and wrong ‘

For its part, the general secretary of the CP-A, Antonio Sanz, regretted that the Andalucian Government’s reaction “late and wrong” with the decision to start the paperwork to legalize an estimated 11,000 illegal homes located in the region of Axarquia, Malaga.

Speaking to reporters, Sanz believes that the regional administration policy in housing is “a real blunder” and “chaos” that creates “legal uncertainty” between developers and investors.

The popular leader has been criticized for many years, the Andalucian Government has made “abdication of responsibility” for urban development and has allowed the construction of developments, “especially on the coast.”

The current situation is that the Spatial Development Plan (POTA) has been sometimes “incompatible” with urban planning in selected municipalities, with the result that many of these plans are now “paralyzed.”

Sanz said that “many buyers in good faith” have been “affected” by the “legal and political blunder of the PSOE, and have acquired their properties with the belief that the developments were within the law “, but now are involved in this kind of legal  “conflict”.