• Girona.SOS Costa Brava demands the declassification of urbanizable areas of the coast

The high number of urban projects outlined throughout Begur (Girona), a total of 116 buildings, has turned the small municipality located in the heart of the Costa Brava into one of the main fronts for environmental entities, which in the course of The last two years have filed up to five different complaints.

The last one, on July 1 in connection with a building permit granted by the City Council on April 28 to build a house isolated with pool in the sector Montcal, and according to the lawyer SOS Costa Brava , Eduard de Ribot , was not only granted "despite the halting of the processing of files decreed during the state of alarm."

"It is also a building planned on land included in the EIN [Area of ​​Natural Interest] Begur Mountains, in the Natura 2000 Network, in the Habitats Directive [a European directive relating to the conservation of natural environments], and which also violates the Forest Law of Catalonia and lacks a study of impact and landscape integration ", adds the lawyer, who clarifies that building in a protected area and of community interest could entail" criminal responsibilities "derived from crimes against land use planning and against the environment, "in the same way that reporting favorably on the project and approving it with knowledge of the facts could be prevarication".

Other constructions also denounced by SOS Costa Brava, as well as by Ecologistes en Acció and SOS Aiguafreda-Salvem Begur , are the construction of 33 houses in the Montcal area -which, like the villa with pool, have been reported to the City Council -; five houses in La Pedrera de s'Antiga -project denounced and admitted for processing by Administrative Contentious Court number 1 of Girona-; and of 52 houses in Sa Riera and a chalet in Port des Pi -also denounced and admitted for processing by the Administrative Contentious Court number 2 of Girona-.

“These are projects with a great environmental impact and that put the conservation of Begur's natural spaces even more at risk, which as a consequence of the great urban pressure are currently divided into several physically separate units, weakening their ecological functionality and, therefore, , the viability of the fauna and flora species of the place, some of them classified as vulnerable to extinction or endangered », points out the ecologist and member of Ecologistes en Acció and Salvem Begur, Lydia Chaparro .

"To this we must add that these projects will lead to an increase in frequentation as a result of the increase in population, also of road traffic and nautical and recreational activities, as well as the construction of swimming pools and gardens. A model that will further complicate the conservation of species and will aggravate the impacts associated with the consumption of scarce natural resources, such as water, and which could also worsen the problem regarding the entry of invasive species associated with the landscaping of new homes » , adds Chaparro, who regrets that the new team of Government of the City Council (in the hands of Maite Selva since June 2019) continues to promote "obsolete and predatory" urban planning that only benefits a "small group of people".

City Council arguments

"The set of projects are included in sectors not affected by the Urban Planning Plan (PDU) of the Girona coast [approved by the Generalitat last December and which in Begur avoided the construction of a 70-hectare urbanization with room for 260 homes and three hotels], and therefore if the Government allows building, the City Council has no other option but to grant the permits that are requested, "argues Mayor Selva.

Likewise, the mayor assures that the license of the chalet with swimming pool in the Montcal area - "the only one of all the projects granted in my mandate", he points out - was given within the legal framework and with the approval of both the municipal regulations as of Urbanism. “It is also not true that licenses could not be issued during the state of alarm. The only thing that happened in that period is that the deadlines for execution of works were paused, "he adds.

As for the protection figures of the place alleged by ecologists, a report provided by the City Council endorses the construction of the chalet based on different reviews of the POUM in Begur and the approval of the PDU.

«That the Master Plan did not include certain sectors of Begur was a defeat for them. And obviously they can denounce urban projects, but from the Town Hall we are calm because everything has been done within the law, "concludes Selva.

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