Environmental group objects to major residential development in Torrevieja

Friends of the Southern Alicante Wetlands (AHSA) have officially demanded that Amendment No. 116 to the Torrevieja General Plan and the Partial Plan for Sector S-29 La Ceñuela not be approved. In this regard, the group has filed formal objections against the processing of this amendment and the partial plan itself, arguing that this urban development would have a negative territorial and environmental impact on the area surrounding the protected Torrevieja Lagoon wetland and on the coastal green infrastructure. They are demanding that the land retain its current classification as non-developable land.

The central argument of the objection, filed on 29th July by the environmental group, is the manifest unsustainability of the proposed modifications to the General Plan and the Partial Plan. The document argues that the land affected by La Ceñuela forms part of a regional green infrastructure corridor and is impacted by the geomorphological hazards of several gullies or ravines that drain into the Torrevieja lagoon and which mostly cross the area.

The objection document frames La Ceñuela within what it calls an unsustainable paradigm of massive residential growth and asserts that the plan aims to further urbanise the area surrounding the Natural Park. It also uses the term ‘urban speculation processes’ to refer to developments that ultimately saturate the territory with large housing estates and could represent an unbearable burden for the municipality. Contrary to what is stated in the partial plan’s report, the document maintains that the project would help create an urban continuum or conurbation between Torrevieja and the Orihuela Costa.

The environmental group argues that the modification of the General Plan should be reviewed using the sustainability indicators or thresholds of the Valencian Community’s Territorial Strategy and the Law on Territorial Planning, Urbanism and Landscape (Trlotup). The document states that these thresholds have almost certainly already been exceeded in Torrevieja due to brutal growth that has encroached upon areas that, in their view, should have remained undeveloped.

The development in question, according to environmentalists, affects a 29-hectare area where around 1,350 homes are planned, distributed in blocks of up to eight floors, to house a population of more than 3,300 inhabitants in the hydrological and landscape basin of the Torrevieja Lagoon. The document also points out that the distribution area includes facilities completely unrelated to environmental uses, such as ordinary educational facilities, both in the impact buffer zone defined by the Natural Resources Management Plan of the wetland system of southern Alicante and in the non-urbanisable land for coastal reinforcement that appears in the Pativel.

The allegations link this criticism to the absence of a General Structural Plan for Torrevieja. The current regulations date back to 1986. According to the document, if such a plan had been implemented, sustainability indicators would have prevented the classification of new developable land. It maintains that the City Council has shown no interest in promoting this General Structural Plan so as not to hinder developments it describes as clearly unsustainable, including La Ceñuela and Sector 20 La Hoya. The City Council’s Urban Planning Department, managed by Mayor Eduardo Dolón, has stalled the process for awarding the contract for this new General Structural Plan for over six years.

Friends of the Wetlands also rejected the claim in the initial version of the partial plan that no objections were filed against its approval and the partial plan for La Ceñuela. According to the document, the group submitted objections on 12 July 2004, to the Torrevieja City Council, both on its own behalf and on behalf of AHSA, against the technical alternative for the S-29 sector programme. It added that these same objections were submitted to the Valencian Regional Government on 29 November 2005, to the then Ministry of Territory and Housing.

The arguments recalled that more than two decades ago, a request was made not to reclassify the area and to keep it as non-developable land. The reason, according to the document, was the impact that its development would have on the Torrevieja Lagoon and its surroundings, as well as the role of this land in the ecological connection between the lagoon and the Cabo Roig marine protected area, via La Ceñuela and the non-developable land of Lo Ferris.

The allegation argued that what was stated more than twenty years ago is even more relevant today. According to the same source, the City Council continues to promote extensive urban development projects that consume land and affect the city’s main territorial and environmental assets: the La Mata and Torrevieja Lagoons Natural Park and the undeveloped land along its coastline. The document also relies on the Territorial Action Plan for the Green Infrastructure of the Valencian Community’s Coast, which was approved to regulate undeveloped coastal land. It argues that the land where new residential and commercial uses are planned falls within the connection area of this territorial plan, and therefore its function as a territorial connection should take precedence.

The document states that there are up to four shallow, flat-bottomed ravines or gullies that drain into the Torrevieja Lagoon and affect both the development area and its surrounding land. These soils are identified by the Territorial Action Plan against Flood Risk (PATRICOVA) as areas subject to geomorphological hazards, which clearly advises against urbanising the area. The final request is that the proposed modifications to the General Plan and the Partial Plan be approved under no circumstances. The objections demand that the land affected by La Ceñuela retain its current classification as non-developable land.