The redevelopment of La Torreta will begin with new green area at Punta de la Víbora. This was stated by the mayor, Eduardo Dolón, in plenary session when he was asked about the project by Sueña Torrevieja.
The opposition party was critical that this action, the drafting of which was awarded by the Governing Board on 31 March, does not appear in the catalogue of investments included in the 2024 Budgets, neither in the short term nor in the long term. All despite the fact that, according to the party spokesperson, Pablo Samper, that “in the ordinary plenary session in October, I asked the mayor about this and he answered that they were analysing the sequence of works to be carried out with the 2024 Budget.”
The mayor explained that the La Torreta urbanisation project is costed at just over nine million euros. “You can get the idea of the magnitude we are talking about,” Dolón responded. He said that the plan involves undertaking “a first phase” which will be the redesign of the green area of approximately 70,000 square metres which has an estimated budget of 1.5 million, and which, he stressed, “we have agreed with all and each of the representatives of the residents”.
He said that he hopes the permits will be approved “in the coming months.”
The area where this new green park will be located borders the protected space of the Lagunas Natural Park, managed by the Generalitat, as well as lands on the public maritime-terrestrial domain, which is dependent on Costas. This is the reason, Dolón argued, that has led him to take the prudence of not including the investment in the current budget. When permission is obtained, he stated, a modification to the Budget will be made to incorporate the money.
La Torreta, once famous for the ‘Un, dos, tres’ apartments, suffers from enormous deficiencies with problems of squatting and the abandonment of highly depreciated homes, unpaved streets, insecurity, and unhealthiness with infestations of rats and cockroaches.
The developer left this residential area half finished, and although the green area was his responsibility, he never completed it, nor was the fact complained about, something that was also the case in La Siesta, where the Council has just built a new park.
Residents tried unsuccessfully, through the courts, to get the Council to take charge of the developer’s unfulfilled commitments. Until now, however, the municipal government has hidden behind the fact that it cannot act on some of the streets that are in the worst condition, because they are listed as private property.
Neither can the water company make repairs to the sewage network because the builder laid the pipes under the houses instead of in the streets. Former mayor Pedro Hernández tried to revitalise the area with the construction of a mud spa designed by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito, which was subsequently abandoned and whose structure has since been the subject of several fires.
