Date Published: 09/04/2021
ARCHIVED - Alicante regional government plans to legalize 75,402 houses on rural land
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The municipality of Elche has the highest number of illegal residences with 13,228 houses
During the building boom of at the beginning of the century which lasted until the economic collapse of 2010 thousands of properties were built illegally across Spain, particularly in rural areas where small "casetas" used for agricultural work, were converted into residential properties, many of them second homes and were never properly licensed or registered with the local authorities.
Following the economic collapse of the construction sector between 2010-2018 the authorities slowly started identifying all of the problem properties and dealing with the series of issues left behind by bankrupt developers, amongst them the issue of illegally built rural properties.
This is a national problem, and various approaches have been used in different regions to resolve the issues. For the main part, the final solution has been to legalise properties built illegally, or grant retrospective planning permission and in areas such as Andalucía, where there was a significant problem, particularly in the Almería province, this has been done by by creating new legislation.
In the Valencia region, the regional government plans to legalize the 75,402 properties built on undevelopable (rural) land in the province of Alicante using a new Agency for the Protection of Territory in Valencia, which aims to be fully operational by the end of this year.
Most of the illegal houses are located in the municipality of Elche, where there are 13,228 properties built without the correct licenses. Elche is followed by Orihuela (7,492) and Alicante (3,028), but Torrevieja has a far smaller number of illegal properties, with only 147, as most of the problems are in rural countryside areas, of which Torrevieja has relatively little.
The Agency will operate under the regional minister of Territorial Policy and will be based in Elche, with 35 employees. The new organization will be in charge of ensuring the protection of undeveloped land and the enforcement of urbanization laws.
A board of directors will be in charge of planning, directing and controlling the Agency’s activity, which will be mainly focused on legalizing around 350,000 properties in the Comunidad Valenciana.
The Agency for the Protection of Territory in Valencia will also adopt measures to decrease the environmental impact of these illegal residences on undevelopable land. The protection of rural land is a primary concern as it is a limited and non-renewable resource and the Agency will also aim to prevent more of these properties being built in the future.
In addition, the new organization will be used to exercise administrative authority in matters of urban legality and will aim to provide more clarity surrounding permitted building work on these houses as well as generating legal certainty in cases of property inheritance.