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18TH - 24TH JUNE 2019 - EDITION 792
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Your Essential Weekly Read
TORREVIEJA SKYSCRAPERS PUT ON HOLD T
he Department for the Coast has frozen the project to develop triple towers of 29 floors each. The Ministry considers that the project would be breaking legislation that protects the
coastal area. Not all the details of the current rejection are available but it is believed that the plans go against conservation legislation. The project had been proposed and presented by the construction company Metrovacesa in el Campico San Mamés close by the Acequión district. The original plans were included in the PGOU (Plan General de Ordenación) and included 90 metre high buildings with 50% of the space dedicated to the hotel industry. Now, the construction company is appealing against the decision on the basis that the plans were set out in a modification to the PGOU in 2008 and the Department of the Coast did not object to them at the time. Originally a limit of six floors was placed on any building in the Torrevieja area at least partly due to concerns about earthquakes. However, the Partido Popular (PP) reclassified the land where the towers were intended to be built and others in positions close to the sea,
allowing building of up to 30 floors rather than six to take place. There was a condition placed on construction companies that 50% of the premises must be dedicated to the hotel trade. The project being proposed is similar to that put forward by Baraka in the Acequión region of the town. In this case there are two proposed skyscrapers of 30 storeys high which would include 130 properties and 250 tourist apartments. This project has already received an
environmental licence from Torrevieja town hall and now awaits approval of a more detailed study. The Baraka building will be 82 metres high and extends to about 32,000 square feet of building land. Once again there is supposed to be hotel provision included in it. However, its commercial advertising refers to the tourist apartments rather than hotel accommodation. Trinitario Casanova will be responsible for the construction of the Baraka towers and have promised to invest 60 million in the project. Although they have complied with the majority of the legislation, the construction company has removed the publicity on the wall surrounding the plot of land next to Doña Sinforosa park. The move to build up rather than out has increased as building land has become more difficult to find. Other projects alongside those of Baraka and Metrovacesa include that of Don Sento in la Cala del Palangre and a proposal to build on a plot in front of Los Naúfragos beach. Although residents of Torrevieja are unlikely to want their town’s skyline to rival that of Benidorm, there is still big money to be made in the selling of tourist apartments overlooking the sea. Suzanne O’Connell