A NEW decree aims to protect Andalucia’s coastline by preventing anyone building on the first 500m of land.

Under the coastal protection plan, launched this week, no new construction projects can be launched and all existing plans will need to go through rigorous tests to prove they are environmentally viable.

The decree will affect 52 town halls stretching over a thousand kilometres of coastline.

The aim is to halt construction of all projects that were planned during the property boom of the 80s and 90s, but are not compatible with today’s regulations.

Reproduced with kind permission of the Olive Press. Read the full article:

Coastal plan to prevent building within 500m of sea in Andalucia.

LPG Spain comments:

This new proposal is all very well but after over forty years of booming construction in Spain, much of which is on the coast, it’s a bit late to bring such a measure into force. In many cases, the damage is already done.

Algarrobico – Almeria

However, better late than never! There still exists much coastline, outside of towns and villages, which is still virgin, some of it forming part of National Parks. But even despite this protection, some authorities in the past have tried to pass legislation allowing construction in these areas, one such example is the hotel that was built in Almeria in the Cabo de Gata-Nijar National Park, declared illegal and stopped in 2005 and which is still subject of a final demolition order.

Spain needs to clean its act up and protect remaining coastal regions from further construction contamination. In a round-about way, this could also at the same time add more value to existing property already built along Spain’s long coastline.

In a similar way inland, and since the introduction of a new law in 2001 by the Junta de Andalucia, drastically reducing the possibility of building in the countryside, prices of large property fair better as they cannot be built again.

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