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Date Published: 16/11/2022
ARCHIVED - Orihuela homes to be finally legalised after 20 years
330,00 euros is being invested by homeowners to "regularise" 20 illegal chalets in the Orihuela hamlet of El Mudamiento, Alicante province
After almost two decades of red-tape wrangling, 20 villas on a residential estate in Orihuela look set to be legalised with an investment of 330,000 euros by the homeowners themselves.
Predominantly British residents of the Los Mazones estate, who bought the houses built on undeveloped land in 2000, have presented Orihuela Town Hall with a plan to reduce the environmental impact of the development so that the properties can be "regularised".
The 20 single-family villas occupy an area of 85,937 square metres, of which 4,682 is actually built upon in the hamlet of El Mudamiento, next to the Cantalobos road less than 1 kilometre from Rafal.
The General Urban Development Plan (PGOU), which dates from 1990, classifies this land as "undevelopable" due to its "landscape, environmental and cultural values", so residential use is not permitted.
Built in the 2000s without municipal licenses, a fictitious subdivision was carried out which did not comply with the law.
And so, to avoid having to demolish the houses, residents joined forces and set up an association, proposing a series of actions - provided for in the legislation on undeveloped land - to reduce the environmental effects and landscape impacts in order to obtain urban regularisation.
In September 2020 and January of this year, they submitted an environmental study and Special Plan for the Minimisation of Environmental Impact to the Town Hall, which has now published the documents for consultation on its website for a period of 45 days.
Basically, problems surround the estate's infrastructure. There is no connection to the water network and drinking water is delivered in tanks, the road is unpaved and linking properties to municipal sewage network is currently "unfeasible".
In order to put these crucial infrastructures in place, each resident must now fork out around 16,500 euros each (330,000 euros in total) to complete the measures within a two year period.
Villa owners bought the properties between 2003 and 2008 and only found out that they didn't comply with planning regulations after the sales.
In 2012, they sent a joint letter to the town council in which they undertook to cover the costs and a year later they turned to the Territorial Directorate, although the procedure began in 2015 with the request for an environmental assessment. In 2018, the Environmental Assessment Commission responded with a document containing the conditions.
Tourist development along Alicante coastline, which has become an increasingly popular destination for overseas buyers, has led to the proliferation of large extensions of settlements and low-density urbanisations over the last 20 years.
In the Vega Baja area of the province alone, there are thousands of illegal dwellings either abandoned, unfinished or in the process of being regularised.
In the case of the Los Mazones estate, there are plots of irrigated land more than 50 years old that, according to the authorities, have "cultural and hydraulic heritage along with a network of rural roads that are part of a landscape that should be conserved and enhanced".
In other news: Drunk Brit, 66, forces emergency landing after groping Jet2 stewardess aboard Leeds-Alicante flight
Image: Ayuntamiento de Orihuela
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