By Peter Houghton
To hell with property rights and the environment, the “Build everywhere” attitude, that makes developers and town halls rich may be back in Valencia. BUT heads up because Orihuela Costa will be next.
It was evident this would be coming even from statements the incoming President and new PP government made while assuming office earlier this year. A recent El Pais article describes those intentions quite clearly. A decree sets out the path into legal concrete, at least at the regional level. The “wild west” could be back soon.
In effect, this “Decreto Ley”, that is, approved by executive order of the Valencian President and Cabinet, without any public or legislative examination or public complaints process, sets out to abolish or eviscerate most of the protections provided under the current land law, the Valencian LOTUP.
That regional law, after many years of struggle and much negotiation finally, under the previous regional Socialist government, replaced (about two years ago) the notorious land grab laws, the LRAU and it successors under the complex LUV.
The LOTUP gave a better degree of protection, in terms of rights and constraints on developers and town halls, most notably to small property owners versus the earlier legal structure.
The actual Decree has already been confirmed in the official, regional Gazette (Decreto-ley 7/2024, de 9 de julio, del Consell, de simplificación administrativa de la Generalitat.) It runs to almost 200 pages! Obviously, more careful legal analysis, beyond my capacity, will be required.
The major feature of this decree is that , where there were measures of protection under the LOTUP and PATIVEL for example , often involving outright prohibition, against arbitrary action on the part of town administrations (even individual mayors), which would favour developers – and outright vulture speculators- most if not all of that appears to vanish under the new “simplification plan” adopted in the decree.
In effect, rules that made some processes obligatory and provided for prohibitions and penalties, become mere guidelines that should – or just might be- considered. The Ten Commandments might, under the same watering down procedure, become the ten matters only to think about- “Thou shall not kill, steal or covet” would become “maybe you shouldn’t kill, steal or covet” without some reason or excuse. The decree puts into regional law what was announced as a concept earlier this year, and criticized in an “El Pais” article of May 13.
What isn’t clear is the extent to which the “relaxation” decree pays heed to national laws governing the environment, water distribution and usage, or for that matter EU norms as regards the same issues, or coastal areas, etc. From reading the articles it seems they can for the present be ignored until any regional development scheme is challenged via the complex Spanish court system or taken to the ECJ (ECJEU).
Enough for now. Some property owners, especially those with larger properties, views, etc. will have good reason to be apprehensive now the ‘simplification’ process may and probably will work against their interests
IT IS EVIDENT THAT MONEY MAKES THE LAWS, NOT POLITICIANS
