Teresa López Pavón Sevilla
Seville
Updated Monday, March 11, 2024-02:01
Almería Demolishing the "mole" of Algarrobico, the devilish "challenge" that Juanma Moreno has set for 2024
If the legal tangle in which the project was involved has delayed the demolition of the ruinous and illegal hotel on
Algarrobico beach
for decades , the political instability suffered by the
Carboneras City Council
now seems to complicate it even more until bringing the matter to a kind of of dead end despite the threats to the Justice council to enforce their sentences.
The last twist of the script could occur this next week if the PSOE consummates the motion of censure that it announced in Carboneras against the popular
Felipe Cayuela
, which would give the mayoralty to the only Ciudadanos councilor in the city council,
Salvador Hernández
.
According to the announced pact, Hernández would take the baton temporarily, until August 2024, with the support of five PSOE councilors plus a non-attached councilor (who came out of the socialist ranks);
As of the agreed date, the mayor's office would pass into the hands of the socialist
José Luis Amérigo
, who was already mayor in the previous term.
And the return of the PSOE to the municipal government of Carboneras means once again having control in place to block the demolition process, as it has been doing in recent months, despite the will expressed by the
Ministry for the Ecological Transition
led by Teresa Ribera.
"I know first-hand that the minister is very concerned about the situation," said the spokesperson for the Andalusian Government, Ramón Fernández Pacheco,
last Monday,
referring, without giving further details, to the conversations that both administrations would have held to comply with the agreement. joint financing of the
demolition process
and the restoration of Algarrobico beach to its natural state.
The PP and the PSOE of Carboneras maintain open confrontations over the way to proceed in relation to the sentences that condemn the hotel to demolition, built with the approval of several socialist administrations despite being built on protected land of the Cabo de Gata Natural
Park -Níjar
.
Until the change at the head of the municipal government after the May 2023 elections, the Carboneras City Council had refused to admit that the Algarrobico license had been granted irregularly because the soils have been protected since 1994. For this reason, it has already Despite various requests from the
Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA)
, the annulment of that license was postponed.
Faced with the threat of sanctions for non-compliance, the government of socialist José Luis Amérigo used a subterfuge to appear to comply with the ruling of the TSJA without admitting the manifest irregularity of the license granting process.
To do this, it brought a resolution to the plenary session, which was approved on
April 26, 2023
, with a proposal to reclassify the land and declare it as "non-developable."
It implied, therefore, that, at the time of the granting of the license in 2003, the land was developable, and that its subsequent protection was due to
"unforeseen circumstances"
.
But that is not what the courts say or what the TSJA had asked him to do.
In fact, on March 1, the
Administrative Litigation Chamber of the TSJA in Granada
admitted an appeal presented by the Junta de Andalucía against that resolution of the plenary session for having "exceeded its limits" in complying with the sentence and having approved a reclassification that does not comply with the law.
The court refers to what was approved by the plenary session at the request of the government of José Luis Amérigo as an "absurdity" contrary to the pronouncements of the 2000/2016 ruling, and as "
an enervating action of the material content of the judicial decisions
, which tends to deprive them of practical effects".
"The urban classification that must be limited to appearing in the PGOU is the one indicated in the ruling in question, which is the one that corresponds to the current zoning and level of protection of the lands that comprise Sectors ST-1 and ST-2, and that already existed in the
1994 Natural Resources Management Plan
," states the TSJA.
In the May 2023 elections, the PSOE and the PP tied six councilors.
The popular candidate, Felipe Cayuela, who received the most votes, was sworn in as mayor with the support of the only Ciudadanos councilor, Salvador Hernández, after an agreement that lasted only a few months, poisoned by mutual accusations.
Hernández has now decided to withdraw his confidence and offer himself to the PSOE for
a motion of censure
that will take him to the Mayor's Office for just over a year.
The motion will be voted on in a plenary session that will be held next Friday, March 15.
According to statements by Felipe Cayuela to Onda Cero Almería, behind this opposition movement there are many interests related to the pending investments in Carboneras by companies such as Endesa or Holcim.
But also the Algarrobico operation, in which the socialists fear that they will come out badly if the city council somehow admits its responsibility in the irregular granting of the license.
"We must not forget that the mayor who granted that license is
the uncle of the socialist candidate
," recalled Cayuela.
The current municipal government, with Cayuela at the helm, brought compliance with the ruling in the form proposed by the TSJA to the plenary session again last November, but was unable to get the proposal forward because it had already remained in the minority after the break with the mayor of Ciudadanos.
Therefore, the city council continues without effectively executing the rulings of the TSJA, thus incurring a
contempt
that may have a cost for the municipal coffers in the form of
sanctions
.
Another fear is that derived from the compensation that the hotel promoters (the
Azata del Sol
company ) may demand once the city council formally recognizes the irregularity of the license granted.
Whether the motion presented against the PP mayor succeeds or not, the PSOE of Carboneras (and, by extension, the Andalusian PSOE which, for the moment, has not disavowed the actions of its councilors), will have to give explanations to the minister. Ribera on why he continues to block (from the municipal government or from the opposition) the
changes in the PGOU
that would allow the demolition of the Algarrobico to be definitively expedited.
The minister said in February that she was "looking forward" to seeing the demolition of the hotel, she recalled that it was she as Secretary of State for the Environment who signed an agreement with the Board in 2011 to half-finance the operation and regretted that, 13 years later, the process remains stalled.
"It's a little frustrating to arrive years later and find that things are still unfinished."