- Torrevieja council grant demolition license for headquarters of Agamed, due to dangerous state, built in 1977
Torrevieja City Council has granted a special demolition license for the headquarters of Agamed this summer.
The license has been approved, due to the dangerous state of the construction, constructed in 1977.
Hoteliers are amongst those vociferous in the city centre against the decision, citing it being at the height of the summer season.
Following the demolition the plot will be house a new office building of the water supply company, Agamed, promoter of the work, and the headquarters of the University of Alicante, Miguel Hernández University and the UNED in Torrevieja.
Torrevieja Council has given the company a plot of 487 square metres, with the build area 1,500 sqmtr.
In 2028, the new €3m building, will return to Municipal hands at no cost to Municipal finances.
Historical buildings
A guarantee for the protection of buildings with historical, architectural and heritage value in Alicante, has been proposed.
The government bipartisan of the Popular Party (PP) and Citizens (Cs), are to promote a new suspension agreement in the processing and granting of demolition licenses, for up to two years.
The proposal that would bring under the umbrella 1,000 properties currently not protected.
The agreement mirrors that adopted amid the formation of the extinct tripartite (PSOE, Guanyar and Compromís) in 2015, freezing the granting of permits to undertake openwork interventions in those buildings, still in the process of being catalogued, pending the Generalitat’s approval of the catalogue of protections approved by the plenary session of the corporation in September 2020.
Urban Planning
The protection move was included in the Urban Planning Committee in June, prior to being raised to the plenary session.
The document is in the revision phase to introduce the required modifications in the sectoral report, sent by the Ministry of Culture in July 2021, without the Strategic Environmental and Territorial Declaration that must be issued by the Ministry of Territorial Policy having been issued, along with the Public Works.
The 1,000 properties intended to be preserved are those included in the catalogue of protections as comprehensive, partial, environmental or typological general conservation assets.
The move is pending any intervention on the 1,000 properties being considered, before the suspension of licenses.
Ministry of Culture
The granting of the permit will go through the authorisation of the Ministry of Culture, amid the process of being catalogued and the public interest, in seeking its conservation having been expressed.
The move does not affect Assets of Cultural Interest (BIC) and those considered as Assets of Local Relevance (BRL) in that same catalogue, having already been preserved, based on the same consideration.
Torrevieja
The list of properties included in the suspension of licenses, include some emblematic buildings of Torrevieja, including the Asilo de Benalúa, owned by the Bishopric of Orihuela, the Casa de las Brujas, headquarters of the Consell Delegation in Alicante, the old Benalúa station, headquarters of Casa Mediterráneo, the Casa de Socorro, the Casa Alberola, the post office building in the Plaza de Gabriel Miró, the Seismological Institute, the IES Jorge Juan and its stairs, the headquarters of the Bank of Spain, the Provincial Tower, the Fish Market or the headquarters of the University of Alicante (UA) of Ramón y Cajal.
If passed it will entail blocking the granting of demolition licenses for 1,000 properties, and the suspension of construction licenses, that entail actions affecting some of its components or individual and specifically protected elements.
The suspension, if approved, will also apply to the demolition licenses for the buildings included in the protection environments of the Casa Soto o Martínez and the Teatro Principal, defined in the Special Plan for the Protection.
Also the Conservation of the Traditional Centre, in response to the requirement of specific correction formulated by the Ministry of Culture in its report on the catalogue, ordered to de-limit their respective protection environments.
Caption: Torrevieja Council grant demolition license for headquarters of Agamed, due to dangerous state, built 1977.
