Finally, on January 29th 2010 and after three years of negotiation COTUA, the committee that advises the Junta de Andalucia on planning issues, has recommended approval of Marbella's new PGOU, the planning regulations that govern how the town will develop in the future. The previous PGOU dated from 1986 but was effectively torn up by Jesus Gil when he became Marbella's mayor in 1991. He made it standard practice to grant building licences for projects on land not designated for development in the 1986 PGOU and this became so widespread that by the time the corruption was exposed in 2006 some 18,000 properties had been illegally built.
16,500 of these will now be legalised retrospectively, the offending developers have paid fines or hand over land to the Town Hall. The municipality will triple green zones areas to a total of 4.8 million square metres and guarantee a ratio of 19.3 square metres of open space per inhabitant, five times more than required by law. The new PGOU is budgeting for €1,823 million public and private investment in the town over the next eight years, a maximum of 26,477 new properties during the same time frame, of which 9,459 will be affordable, low-cost housing.
Of the 1,500 illegal properties specifically excluded from the new PGOU, 1,100 are either finished but not occupied or construction was halted before completion and the Junta is insisting on demolition. Also specifically excluded from the new agreement are 297 occupied apartments in the Banana Beach complex, plus occupied properties in Golf Rio Real and La Libora. The Junta refused to legitimise these developments because in addition to having illegally issued licences they also contravene the 1988 Ley de Costas (Coastal Law) which prohibits construction within 100 metres of the high water mark. In effect, these projects stole the beach from the general public and made it private, with gardens and pools, and often making public access to the beach in front of the development very difficult.
However, Banana Beach residents have complained that other developments built less that 100 metres from the water have been included in the new PGOU and they have demanded that all such properties are treated the same. If they thought that this would bring a change of heart by the Junta they were wrong. In a last minute alteration to the PGOU the Junta, agreeing with the concept that similar cases should be treated equally, added six more urbanisations to the list of those refused legalisation, including Jardines de la Costa, Alcotanes, Alvarito Playa and the Plaza del Mar commercial centre. As the Marbella Town Hall and the Junta de Andalucia are unable to agree on the fate of these properties the future of all developments not legalised by the new PGOU will be referred to the courts and they remain at risk of demolition.
With the ratification of the PGOU Marbella has gone from being the most high profile example of the very worst corruption that exists in the planning process all over Spain to the first important town in Andalucia to have a PGOU that complies with the 2003 LOUA (Ley de Ordenacion Urbanistica de Andalucia) and the town can move on.
