Ibiza introduces controversial 3-year building moratorium that includes existing urbanisations
The local government of Ibiza, run by a coalition of the PSOE socialist party, the United Left party, and the Greens, has introduced a controversial 3-year moratorium on building licences in 13 areas of Ibiza, designed to protect some of the islands most attractive landscapes. In all some 400 hectares of coastline and hills in the interior are protected by the moratorium.
Furthermore, building licences in other areas will only now be granted in places where land has already been fully urbanised, with paved roads, street lighting, sewage systems, and water pipes.
“We want to save 13 tourist zones whilst we still can,” the sponsor of the moratorium, Miquel Ramon (United Left), told the Spanish press. “And we want to ensure that there are no more urbanisations built without the necessary infrastructure, the cost of which developers are supposed to pay, but which, in the end, the town hall has to assume. Individual houses must not devour more pine trees and coves.”
Amongst the zones protected by the construction licence moratorium are 73 hectares on the coast at Santa Eulalia, on the east coast of the Island, where new buildings that threaten the hills in Cap Llibrell and Cap Martinet are now blocked.
Controversially, the moratorium also affects the ‘Roca Llisa’ urbanisation, on the east of the island between Ibiza town and Santa Eulalia. Roca Llisa, located next to one of the few golf courses in Ibiza, is an established urbanisation, zoned for residential use, where plots can be bought to build villas.. “There are a lot of plots on Roca Llisa that were given building licences automatically, and in an irregular manner,” said Ramon. “Therefore, the moratorium will have the biggest impact on Roca Llisa.”
The hundreds of owners of plots on Roca Llisa affected by the moratorium are furious. “It’s crazy blocking building licences and converting plots in Roca Llisa, the cream of Ibiza’s urbanisations, into rustic land,” one owner, who paid 850,000 Euros for a plot of 22,000 square meters beside the golf course told the Spanish press. “Now my buildable land is worth only 6,000 Euros, which is to say, nothing.”
Ibiza has suffered from 50 years of poorly regulated urban development, during which urbanisations have grown without planning permission. The moratorium is an attempt to halt this process. “We are stopping the urbanisation of land on the Illa Blanca (White Island) that has been dubiously classified as urban,” explained Ramon.
Other areas included in the moratorium are Punta Pedrera, Cala Comte and Cala Bassa in Sant Josep, the nature zone of Cap Llentrisca, Sa Talaiasa, in Cala d’Hort. “In Cala d’Hort we have recovered part of the natural park that the PP (right of centre Popular Party, previously in power) wiped of the map to build a golf course,” said Ramon.
The new regulations have also stopped building work in monte de Port de Benirràs, which the local town hall, run by the PP, had given ‘express’ building licences to pre-empt a previous moratorium. “They were working on a new development in Ets Amunts d’Eivissa (Benirràs), of 14.6 hectares which will now be protected,” said Ramon.
“This will cause a total paralysis of construction,” said Pedro Palau of the PP. “It will intensify the economic crisis.” Left wing and green activists, on the other hand, dismiss the moratorium as not going far enough.
By revoking building licences, the moratorium raises the issue of compensation for owners who have seen the value of their land plummet as a result. As far as Ramon is concerned, if the courts decided that owners should be compensated, the bill should be sent to the regional government in Mallorca.
[Only Registered Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register]
Ibiza introduces controversial 3-year building moratorium that includes existing urba 
