The new General Town Planning Ordinance (PGOU) in Marbella establishes a legal framework for the recovery of the public and private sector
Following deep uncertainty in the fallout of the Caso Malaya which left Marbella’s town hall and property market turned upside down for years, it seems that the revised General Town Planning Ordinance (Plan General de Ordenación Urbana–PGOU), whose final approval took place in March 2010, is bringing some stability against a background of general economic recovery benefitting real estate and all other sectors of the town’s economic activity.
In spite of its population of over 100,000 and a reputation unmatched in Spain as a luxury holiday destination, Marbella had not had a revision to its town planning ordinance in 24 years. With the new PGOU, it became the first town on the Costa del Sol whose planning ordinance fully complied with the regional government’s Urban Planning Law (Ley de Ordenación Urbanística de Andalucía–LOUA) dating back to 2002.
It was no easy task to approve the highly complex document, which will remain in force for the next eight years and regularizes the situation of no less than 16,500 of the 30,000 homes that were built illegally in the municipality over the last three decades. The new ordinance required approval by the Comisión de Ordenación del Territorio y Urbanismo de Andalucía, a body created to harmonize and supervise urban and rural development planning throughout the region. In addition, lawmakers had to address thousands of public enquiries made as the plan was being developed.
Both the rectification of past wrongs and the avoidance of similar problems in the future are vastly difficult tasks subject to the conflicting interpretations of thousands of lawmakers, politicians, home owners, and their lawyers. Courts have been instructed by the Andalusian government to continue the labor of “urban definition” concerning those homes and plots whose situations remain unresolved by “rationally mitigating the interests of real estate developers so that those of a social or any other nature considered in the legal sentences prevail.”
Between 1999 and 2007, a series of mayors were fired in quick succession and eventually jailed for, among other sins, enriching themselves by offering protected land to developers at below-market prices in return for bribes. After the national government took the unprecedented step of dissolving the municipal government and installing a temporary ruling commission, Angela Muñoz of the conservative Partido Popular was elected mayor in the 2007 nationwide municipal elections with the promise of returning Marbella to good governance and the rule of law. With over 100 people jailed in Caso Malaya, €400 million owed to regional and national tax authorities, a million euros in interest accruing each month, and vast shortcomings in public infrastructures, this was no easy task.
Someone eventually had to take up the challenge. The new PGOU is the main achievement of the Muñoz government. It does not only deal with the problem of illegal constructions. In compliance to the aforementioned Andalusian Urban Planning Law (LOUA) as well as the Andalusian Territorial Planning Ordinance (POTA), it specifically calls for the development of public housing, new tourism infrastructures, a network of public parks, and new public transport facilities including bus and rail. Over 26,000 new homes are planned for, of which almost one third are to be public housing. Some 3.7 million square meters are earmarked for public parks.
Naturally the economic crisis has hit Marbella, some say harder than elsewhere, and a good number of projects have been put on the backburner or simply interrupted due to financial, bureaucratic, and other shortcomings. These ill-fated projects include a new library, a polyvalent cultural activity centre, an agricultural museum, and the long-awaited geriatric center. Projects that were only partially completed, to the great disappointment of many, include underground parking infrastructures and the new network of daycare centers. The crisis has meant that both the regional and national government have cut off funding for public works and the improvement of tourism infrastructures (on which many of the aforementioned projects were fully or partially based). Finally, disagreements with the Seville and Madrid governments, both socialist, have stalled negotiations on the building of new schools and health centers.
But the news isn’t all bad. In addition to the approval of the PGOU itself, the new administration has presided over the successful completion of many significant public works. Among these are some 100 new public housing homes, the creation of a new neighborhood police unit, a new music and dance academy, refurbishment of Hospital San Juan de Dios, and a neighborhood refurbishment plan with dozens of projects completed involving lighting, hygiene, and decoration. Also among the success stories are 22 new parks and children’s playgrounds as well as the new stretches of the seaside promenade and the new terraces at the pleasure harbor. The latter opened over 7,000 square meters of previously unused land to the public and now constitutes a new tourist attraction in and of itself.
On balance, then, things could be a lot worse for Marbella, and tourists seem to think so too, as indicated by the progressive recovery of this sector over the past couple of years. For its part, the local property market is showing a clear recovery in 2011, particularly as a result of the upper-price range purchases of foreign investors. Buyers seem to have regained a degree of confidence and finally be willing to take advantage of the generalized 30% markdown in prices that took place after the end of the property boom. If developers and politicians learn to stick to the rules–and the new PGOU is already helping in this regard–this could well be the dawning of a new era of brilliance for the pearl on the Costa del Sol that Marbella has always been.
Posted on May 24th, 2011 filed under Marbella Property News.
Marbella Property Blog
Everything you need to know about Marbella property and lifestyle.