One step forward, two steps back in land battle

Just as people were starting to hope that local, regional and central governments were coming to their senses with regards to finding a solution to the long-running illegal land fiasco, it would appear there is someone coming out of the woodwork intent on putting a spanner in the works.

The Board of Nature Studies for the Axarquia area, Gena-Ecologistas en Accion, has asked the Junta de Andalucia regional government to halt a process to regularise homes built on rustic land, as they consider the action to be illegal.

The president of Gena, Rafael Yus, has quickly jumped on the bandwagon after a High Court decision rendering the Marbella PGOU land regulations null and void, when he explained in a note: ‘The legal base for this consideration is in the recent sentences from the High Court against the Marbella PGOU.’

Yus said that the courts established that “planning departments do not have the power to legalise something which was built illegally at the time” and in the case of the 2/2012 decree to regularise homes, this power rests with municipal planning departments, stating the steps councils need to take.