Operation Bigastro

A court in Orihuela is now investigating het granting of a licence by the council to build the 13 houses ,  “Los Altos de la Pedrera”, on 3,361 square metres of land on Sector D-9 Manzana 1 –Parcela 2.

Approval was given to build these houses on land that was described as dotacional which I understand means for commercial use. The change of use for the land was approved on the 27th October by the local council but not authorised by the Valencian Catalan Autonomous Government.

At the time, the present mayor, Raúl Valerio Medina was the councillor in charge of Urbanism. Also implicated are Inmaculada Martínez, the ex-mayorJosé Joaquín Moya and ex-councillor Mari Carmen Grau.

In his  declaration, Valerio Medina explained that the change of use of the land relates back to a decision made in 2003 at which time he ex-mayor was in charge of urbanism. He claims that the municipal technician, who is also implicated in the case,  indicated that the licence to build houses was in agreement with the General Plan for Bigastro.

Inmaculada Martínez, in her statement to the Guardia Civil in November 2008 explained that the councillors relied upon documents prepared by the council  technicians and the legal secretary. She says that  Raul Valerio  was in charge of Urbanism at the time the decision was made and that he had not explained in depth what steps had to be taken to re-classify the land so that houses could be constructed on it.

Whoever is responsible, the result is the same = the houses are not legal.

The problem for this development is much worse than that though. As i have said before, the land in this part of the estate was clearly not good for building on. The constructors had to dig so far down to reach solid ground that the adjacent road collapsed. The builder then had to reduce the number of houses from 13 to 9. Some of  the houses were completed and occupied whilst others were left part finished as the builder presumably ran out of money.

The result is that owners who had moved in have all now moved out and the site lies derelict.