| These figures
serve to illustrate a point of fiscal imprudence by those very offices
who would be given more powers – perhaps to fill their ever decreasing
coffers to landowners detriment.
More seriously
– town halls have proven to be innately corrupt. For example, in Pego
the former mayor has been in prison for such offences. The mayors of Javea
and Fleix have been reported for reclassifying land on which they owned
a substantial amount. These are some examples and there are many more still.
Conflict of
interest? You bet there is.
Coming soon
to a Town Hall near you?
Is it not somewhat
worrying that the very people who have previously shown such dereliction
of duty are now being given even more power to abuse their electorate?
Where does
LRAU fit in?
What is a “poor”
town hall to do? Little money from Central Government, rising debts, tourism
on the decline and big industries are dying rapidly. The previous solution
of devaluing the Peseta is no longer an option – though it appears printing
more Euros is, but that’s another story.
The quick fix
solution lies in re-classifying agricultural land or suelo rustico and
making it Urbanisable (Suitable for building). Once town halls apply
for reclassification of Land they utilise LRAU to expropriate land from
the land owners and thereby ensure the development goes ahead.
Inland we’re
all right Jack – aren’t we…?
Think so do
you? Ask yourself this question
Where could
you place a golf course?
Take a look
at the orange groves and olive trees around that give so much pleasure.
How long before you’ll be looking onto the first tee from your new apartment
you swapped involuntarily for your nice house and beautiful orchard?
Is it likely
to happen?
There are
plans to build a further 67 further golf courses in the Valencia region
alone. Already 30+ are in the offices of the Valencian Government awaiting
approval. Where do you think these golf courses are going to go? – can
you be sure one of them isn’t at a Town Hall near You?
More worryingly,
should the construction industry fail – by running out of building land,
or people not buying, then the whole of the Valencian Economy will falter.
And this will have dire consequences.
So the Valencian
government pushed by the promoters and constructors who fund their electoral
ambitions have a vested interest, if not an absolute need, to
promote development and overcome the resistance of property owners who
naturally, if naively believe what they invested their live savings
in, is actually theirs – after all shouldn’t landowners realise it is for
the benefit of the community as a whole and make their "social contribution"
to the well being of the locals, even if these turn out to be developers
and cash strapped town halls.
Who are
the main players and how do they benefit?
There are 4
main players
-
The Local Town
Hall – Benefit short term from building licences, which brings large revenues
longer term - larger population more local taxes raised, more central gov’t
money.
-
The Generalitat
of Valencia – benefit from building taxes and sales tax on property
-
The Developer/Promoter
– benefits from exceptional profits, clearly the more he can charge landowners
the more profit he makes, setting aside prime development land and selling
this later on
-
The Land Owner
– The increase in value of the land after urbanisation more than compensates
for the land lost and the fees paid – well it does if you believe the Town
Halls and Valencian Government anyway. But what if the land owners want
to remain in their property and not sell – how do they then benefit? And
as we will see later – this argument doesn’t hold water for most of the
victims.
The Process
– how it should be
-
The Local Town
Hall decide they need more land for urbanisation
-
Now they should
inform The Land Owners about the potential plans to re-classify
-
The Local Town
Hall request permission from the Generalitat of Valencia to re-classify
land to urbanisable.
-
The Generalitat
of Valencia should conduct a feasibility and Environmental impact study
-
Once complete
they give permission to The Local Town Hall to Reclassify
-
The Local Town
Hall should then inform The Land Owners so they can prepare
alternatives
-
The Local Town
Hall should announce the plans in the local, regional, National press and
the European Journal (in accordance with EU contract law for public service
contracts) in order that every Developer/Promoter in the EU has a fair
chance of tendering a bid for the project
-
Once all bids
are in The Local Town Hall should select a winning Developer/Promoter based
on price, technical ability, financial solvency and other factors
-
The winning Developer/Promoter
is selected
-
The plans are
announced to The Land Owners who have an opportunity to respond
-
The Land Owners
can present an opposing plan if they wish
-
The Land Owners
are presented with the bill by the Developer/Promoter and how much land
they will lose
The urbanisation
goes ahead
What actually
happens?
In a majority
of cases the above procedure is completely ignored - owners are only told
about the plans once they have been approved at which point they have 18
days to respond. Many owners are absent or don’t speak the language, so
don’t know anything until it is too late. Town Halls seldom make any attempt
to inform the owners because it isn’t in their interests.
The environmental
impact studies are seldom carried out which leads to problems such as in
Javea and Denia where over development has led to water shortages,
immense traffic problems and you try parking in Denia or Javea in Summer
– its almost impossible. Also what about sewerage and rubbish. Most towns
have a problem dealing with the rubbish they currently have let alone added
burden of future development.
These studies
are important not just for the environmentalists but for the rights of
current and future residents to basic services which are a standard necessity.
Isn’t this what living in a first world European Country grants us?
EU contract
law is continually flouted. Town Halls DO NOT announce plans where
they should – if at all. They award it to one developer who “may be”
associated or, have offered some kind of inducement for the project. They
never make the project publicly available for competitive tender. Where
there is no competition the cost is highly inflated and questionable.
All this has
an impact on the costs the landowners pay and the land they subsequently
lose.
And where is
the so called social benefit which is the reason for enforcing expropriation
of land – oh yes nice green areas and new shiny town hall offices and police
stations – to deal with the influx of new residents, who have paid a tidy
sum to developers who ultimately profit along with the Town Halls.
And the
poor landowners. Well why should anyone care about them – after all
they were stupid enough to buy a plot of rustic land and who cares if just
every law under to protect them has been broken in the process.
Well actually
we all should because by doing nothing we are helping to promote these
abuses. But more later on what You can do about it.
Abuses –
What Abuses?
What exactly
has happened that breaches EU law, Spanish Constitution and Human Rights?
Well just in case you have missed the past page or two here are the main
abuses in detail.
1. Consultation
– or lack of it
In any civilised
country and, I am sure we all believe Spain is, before any kind of development
can take place the land owners have to be consulted. This is a basic right
is it not? However it is a basic right that is seriously overlooked and
completely ignored in Valencia.
2. Feasibility
and environmental impact study - or lack of it
The Generalitat
should order a feasibility study and environmental impact study to be conducted
by the town halls. These are important because they identify problems
such as water shortages (very poignant given the drought this year -
2005) where waste will be disposed, electricity supply (Iberdrola
are refusing to grant new licences in some areas because they don’t have
the capacity to cope with current demand). There are very few projects
that have such a study and where such studies are carried out it is questionable
whether they are indeed factual.
For example
the salt flats 'Las Salinas' at Calpe had such a study made of the area.
In fact a petition was raised against this very urbanisation because of
the environmental impact. However the Spanish Authorities responded that
according to there study there was no impact to consider and therefore
the EU washed its hands of it.
However
this turned out to be extremely misleading as the re-parcellation project
turned out to be a major urbanisation project which will destroy hundreds
of species of wild birds, not to mention many species of flora and
Fauna and water shortages – which already present a large and growing problem
in the area were conveniently overlooked. No consideration was given to
anything except the benefits to the property developers and the local town
halls to the detriment of the environment and the property owners. (as
an update to this the land has now been reclassified as protected so cannot
be built upon)
3. Notification
of owners – or the complete lack of
Once the
town hall have the basic outline permission and identified an area the
owners should be notified – in nearly every case they are NOT! These
owners are typically (but not exclusively) foreigners who are not
permanent residents and no attempt is made to contact them – why because
if they mounted a legal challenge it would hold up the project. Where such
an attempt is made, the contact details are typically way out of date –
and it really isn’t in the best interests of the Town Halls to identify
the current owners. So they don’t bother.
4. Invitation
to tenders.
The town halls
are required to announce the urbanisation in the local, regional, national
and European press (the European Journal is a legal requirement)
for any major contracts (over €5.3M which is pretty much any urbanisation
in recent history) – this is basic European Contract Law and applies
to all member states and all town halls irrespective of nationality. They
are required to do this to give all constructors the opportunity to bid
for the project – thus ensuring impartiality and the best price/value.
Very seldom
is this done – if ever. Typically it is a developer who initiates the
process and applies pressure on the town halls in terms of lobbying, social
benefits (green areas public buildings etc) and inducements – read
bribes – allegedly.
There are a
number of cases that have sprung to light in the past 2 years where the
mayors have been put behind bars for taking inducements from developers
in the form of money or expropriated land – it matters not it is the same
– fraud by any other name.
They then push
through the development plans and only when it is approved do they announce
these plans – giving the property owners no time to react.
5. Expropriation
of land.
The town halls
have the right under LRAU to steal – and lets not mince our words,
this is theft – the land from the owners. They can take up to 70% of the
land.
Now let’s play
devils advocate here and say that we agree that urban development is a
good thing and we don’t mind losing a bit of land – we don’t even mind
paying a bit for the urbanisation. But 70% of your land to go to building
roads and infrastructure – come on!
That’s a lot
of roads!
Where does
this land really go?
I was given
some facts about an urbanisation locally – I won’t name it because the
person does not wish to be identified. However I was told that 10%
of the land was for roads, 10% for green areas, 10% for public use. I am
no mathematician but I calculate that to be 30%.
These figures
aren’t exact but not far off. He also told me that the landowners lost
around 40% in total. So where did the other 10% go to?
If this is
a typical urbanisation (it is about 330,000M2 so could be classed as
typical in size and distribution) then if 40% is enough for this urbanisation,
why, then, do others feel the need for an additional 30% on top. Where
does this land go to?
Have a think
about that for a moment.
Now think about
this?
Many town
hall mayors and certainly the promoters, become VERY rich after an urbanisation.
How did they become lucky enough to find so much land in an area that was
being urbanised. I sure wish I had their foresight.
6. Payment
of urbanisation fees.
To add insult
to injury the landowners who have lost 70% of their land are now presented
with a bill for the urbanisation. At the AUN meeting on Sept 20th in Benissa,
I met a Lady who prefers not to be named (she has been named on many
previous occasions and she is a little fed up with the press in general)
who told me her story. She had 1000M of land with a house on it. The developers
took 700M of it away leaving her with 300M.
Not enough
to have a house on they say – she needs 800M at least.
So in order
to keep her house she must buy back another 500M of her OWN land at the
new urbanised value – which by the way she cannot afford to do.
Not only
this but, she is presented with a bill for an urbanisation she neither
wants nor benefits from – an amount totalling €200,000. Mere pocket
change really isn’t it?
But she has
land left she can sell I hear you say.
The land
she has left is worth about €225,000. So she now is in a situation
whereby she has no home, little land and no money. She may be lucky
and come out of it with a second hand caravan – so why is she complaining
eh? She still has somewhere to live hasn’t she? And what did she do wrong?
She bought
a plot of rustic land. CRIME of the Century!
If it is then
how many others, I wonder, have committed the same crime?
Hold on
a moment, surely this counters the argument put forward as a benefit
to the owners that their land is worth substantially more after the urbanisation
plans and that the owners will benefit from this price increase.
In which
case, in what way have our lady and her neighbours benefited. If she is
lucky she will be left with a little bit of money from the sale of her
land – but who will buy it. Oh yes the developers will – but at a knock
down price because its no good to anyone else. The land she has left will
be needed to pay the urbanisation fees. Where is her benefit here?
Who is really
benefiting from this?
Continues
on the next page ... |
