El diumenge 22 d’agost del 2021, l’Associació Ciutadana Som Capicorb, va realitzar un comunicat aclarint alguns punts importants sobre el PATIVEL. Es va publicar en El Set i Pots llegir-lo, en castellà, ací.
El domingo 22 de agosto del 2021, la Asociación Ciudadana Som Capicorb, realizó un comunicado aclarando algunos puntos importantes sobre el PATIVEL. Se publicó en El Set y Puedes leerlo, en castellano, aquí.
On Sunday 22nd August 2021, the Citizens’ Association Som Capicorb, made a communiqué clarifying some important points about the PATIVEL. We have translated it into English, for our neighbours who do not speak Spanish. Originally published in El Set and you can read it, in spanish, here.
Communiqué of the Citizens’ Association Som Capicorb on PATIVEL
Information on Capicorb and Torrenostra of interest for neighbours and visitors
Since the approval of the PATIVEL in 2019 there are many neighbours who asked us about the possible urban developments in Capicorb.
We would like to clarify some questions:
1.- The PATIVEL does not prohibit building, it only prohibits urbanisation.
That is, in the first thousand metres from the Public Maritime Terrestrial Domain (DPMT) new constructions are not allowed, but reconstructions and improvements to the existing ones are allowed, even with prudent extensions of volume. The only requirement is that these works adapt to the surroundings and therefore obtain a landscape integration certificate.
In the next 1,000 metres inland, new buildings are permitted on plots of at least 10,000 metres in size, as was previously the case on rural land. Only the same landscape integration certificate is required.
In both cases, the landscape integration certificate limits the creation of screens, heights of more than two storeys and a number of other minor features that may affect the landscape and the natural environment.
Apart from these possibilities, the construction limitations derived from the dangers of flooding determined by the PATRICOVA, and those for the protection of the Sol del Riu wetland and its surroundings, remain fully in force.
2.- The projected golf course and its five thousand flats to be built in Torrenostra do not in any way comply with the law, as certified by the municipal secretary of Torreblanca. The companies involved with SAREB and the real estate company of Sabadell, Solvia, at the head, are resisting because of the great losses that it would represent for them, having bought the land at a good price at the time and seeing it devalued to a very low price. We must remember that they bought them voluntarily to speculate, and that speculating one can make a lot of money, but one also runs the risk of losing it. This resistance is futile, the current project cannot be legally approved, and the 2002 project, which was approved at the time, has lapsed and has no legal value.
According to the PATIVEL, in 2023 the legal deadline for developing any urban development project on these lands will end, and then they will enter into the same protection that Capicorb has today. Torreblanca has no problem either legally nor administratively in developing an excellent urbanistic proposal by filling all the land between Torrenostra and Torreblanca in a plan at a higher level. Sooner or later that will be its development. Doñablanca golf is already legally speaking dead . At worst a couple of fairways and a few blocks can be started to be build only to leave the sad spectacle of a mess, plots full of rubble and abandoned cables and pipes as in the neighbouring case of Torre la Sal or in Camí Mon Rossi. This is the only danger that still remains and it is certainly not a small one.
3.- The project of Rigoberto Ebri, now acquired by the multinational Taylor Woodrow, in the area around the hermitage, to build a block of about seventy flats in four floors on this very small plot, has been paralysed in the courts since the beginning. It does not comply with all the required town planning regulations, and the courts, although they have shelved the numerous complaints filed against the project without a proper investigation, have never ruled in favour of the project in a final judgement. There are currently two open legal cases, one criminal and the other in the process of being brought at European level. It should be remembered that all the land in the immediate area of the wetland is undeveloped land under special protection and all the land in the immediate area of the San Miguel river is floodable.
The project is legally unfeasible and the problem is that the British company bought the land for seven million euros and when it is finally declared neither developable nor buildable, they will have to find out who cheated them and charge them for it. This is a problem to be solved in due course between the company, Rigoberto Ebrí, the mayor and the councillors who approved the initial licence, and the judges. The project is administratively and legally unfeasible and cannot be carried out under any circumstances with the legislation in force in the Valencian Community, Spain and Brussels. It is liquidated, although formally there is still a lot of judicial and administrative paperwork to be completed.Opinión
4.- On the other hand, it is well known that in the last four years we have had eleven new neighbours who have bought old houses or land and are already living among us, and that little by little we are putting land into cultivation with almond trees, olive trees and crops from the “huerta” (orchards, vegetables)
There is a future, very different from the one thought by those who wanted to speculate with Capicorb and take away our legitimately acquired properties and destroy our privileged environment. It will be different and certainly much better for peaceful people, prudent neighbours and new neighbours who love a protected place like Capicorb.
Sooner or later the connection between Alcossebre and Torreblanca will be wide and comfortable and we will find ourselves with a privileged region from Torre la Sal to Peñíscola and Santa Magdalena and Alcalà, with two natural parks, six kilometres of coastline protected by the PATIVEL, a marine reserve in front, the Columbretes, and two tourist villages not excessively deteriorated, Alcossebre and Torrenostra/Torreblanca. A case of exceptional value in the whole of the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
Thanks to the villagers who have fought to achieve this extraordinary situation and to those who continue to defend their legitimately acquired properties, their citizens’ rights and the natural environment and agriculture.