Goodbye Algarrobico

IN yet another twist to the El Algarrobico saga, Carboneras town hall confirmed that it occupies non-building land.

The 20-storey hotel inside the Cabo de Gata-Nijar national park infringes Spanish law because it has invaded the state-owned maritime strip.

When building work was halted 15 years ago the promoters maintained that the goalposts had been moved by establishing this strip 100 metres from the high water mark.

Azata del Sol had obtained the necessary permits in the 1980s, when this strip was set 50 metres from the shore and the national park did not exist,  the company insisted,.

Environmentalist groups immediately hailed the decision to modify Carboneras’ planning regulations and classify the Algarrobica site as “specially protected” as a triumph.

This would also facilitate the demolition of the practically-finished hotel, they maintained.

In an interview with the Spanish media, Jose Ignacio Dominguez, lawyer for the Ecologistas en Accion group as well as Greenpeace, claimed that “ample jurisprudence” demonstrated that modifying planning regulations in this fashion had a domino effect.

This would cancel out everything else based on those regulations, including the Algarrobico’s building permit, Dominguez said.