Algarrobico building licence declared illegal after three years

    The environmental group 'Salvemos Mojacar' took the Carboneras town council and the construction company, Azata del Sol, to court in September 2005 asking that the building licence awarded by the council allowing the construction of an enormous 411 room hotel be revoked and that building work, which started in May 2003, be halted. The court case started almost three years ago to the day by the environmental group has finally finished with the judge giving sentence in a document running to 22 pages. Work on the hotel was paralysed in February 2006 and since then various legal processes have been started at regional and national levels. The situation was brought to the attention of the Spanish public by Greenpeace, which made the Algarrobico case a national environmental cause with questions being raised in Spanish parliament.

    In the sentence the judge ,Jesus Rivera Fernandez, who presides over the provincial contentious-administrative court number 2 in Almeria capital was unequivocal in his condemnation of the conduct of the Carboneras town council and perhaps more significantly that of the Junta de Andalucia regional government. The sentence declared the building licence to be void ipso jure or as a matter of law and ordered the council of Carboneras to revoke it which indirectly implies to take steps leading to its demolition. It also reaffirmed the existing precedents regarding the 100 metres from the sea going inland which cannot be constructed on (and was in this case) and blames the Junta and the town council for the violation of this law, the sentence also highlights the fact that the town council were completely aware of the existence of this regulation beforehand. The judge also ruled that there is no right to compensation according to coastal law, with the only indemnification due being the cost of construction and not the anticipated value of the unfinished building. The ruling stated that the construction was undoubtedly built in an area protected as being a 'natural area of general interest' and considered that the regional ministry of the environment illegally altered the planning map defining the protected area (it had claimed a cartographic error in its defence of this accusation due to the map consulted when studying the planning application being difficult to read) – "giving an appearance of legality to what was manifestly illegal". The sentence also confirms that the existence of the hotel is incompatible with the recently approved re-classification of the land it is on as C3, non-urbanisable.

    The part which has given most satisfaction to the ecologists is the judge's ruling that the crime of prevaricacion, something with no direct equivalent in Anglo-Saxon law but which is equivalent to collusion to act illegally or pervert the course of justice has been committed on the part of the Carboneras council and the Junta. As a result the sentence orders that declarations be taken from those involved and the case referred to the public prosecutor's office.

    There exists a right to appeal within fifteen days from the notification of the sentence.