Jan's Update

Valencia Life 30.12.05
URBANIZATIONS: UP IN THE AIR?
Whilst Benissa yesterday published in the Official Bulletin of Alicante Province the latest project for the coastal area of the municipality, many other building companies were raising the voice of alarm. It now is no secret that there clearly will not be enough water to go around to support the many thousand of homes that they hope to build in the ValencianCommunity. Accordingly it would appear that at least some of the new projects are being revised to include a desalination plant, whilst pressure is also being applied on the builders by the various town halls that are keen to increase their revenues from local taxes. A case in point is Alicante, where it would appear that the Town Hall is keen to maintain its annual growth rate of 50,000 homes a year.

Valencia Life 25.12.05
ANOTHER INVESTIGATION (VL)
The European Union yesterday continued its attacks on the Valencian Community by admitting that it was now intending to investigate the project for the Castellon/Costa de Azahar Airport. The intentions were made clear after MEP Willy Meyer of the IU party stated that the airport 'as has been planned by the local authorities is being built outside the area that was studied for the environmental impact of the installation, and consequently this is resulting in the destruction of forests and artistic monuments'. His second allegation was that the environmental study for the airport project was not compatible with the current Valencian laws in this regard, whils this third allegation concerned the Grey Eagles who use the area to breed and feed, ' and only certain nests will be preserved. EU Environmental Commissioner Stavros Dimas stated that he was writing to both the Spanish Government and the Valencian Authorities in order that he receive better documentation on the project, which has been on hold since last October.

Valencia Life. 23.12.05
A STORMY DEBATE (or LUV's labour's won?)
The Valencian Parliament yesterday approved the new land laws, better known as LUV, with the votes of the Partido Popular, who carried the motion. The remainder of the parliamentary session - the last before Christmas - was taken up with recriminations between the various politicians over the European Union report about the land laws. The PP accused the opposition parties of being totally disloyal by using the European findings as a weapon with which to beat the Valencian Government over the head, and also criticized certain 'European Lobbies' and 'the financial interests of other countries' of interfering with the laws of the Valencian Community. The Socialists stated that they considered the new law did not comply with the norms of the European Union, but Rafael Maluenda, the joint spokesman for the PP stated: "The European Union has no right to impose itself on our competencies. Brussels must respect the decisions taken in Spain and in theValencian Community as Spain is a country in its own right."
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Note: We have an electronic version of the draft law as debated in the Cortes yesterday. Together with the proposed amendments (all of which, apart from some proposed by the PP itself, were rejected) it totals over 240 pages of turgid legalistic verbiage. Some sentences run to 50 words and some paragraphs more than a page. It will therefore take some time to analyze. The LUV is to enter into force and replace the LRAU 30 days after it appears in the DOGV ( the official regional bulletin) . It is open to challenge via the courts, and that may well happen. However it will be in effect during such an appeal period. Unless the wording was modified, one feature of the LUV (Chapter IV) will require that ALL development plans (PAIs) be published in the BOE, the official Bulletin of Europe, and thus be open to EU wide competition prior to approval . That process, which carries some technical and procedural requirements, will add some delays, and perhaps open more development schemes to court appeals. CVS

Valencia Life 20.12.05
BUILDING TO GO AHEAD
The Valencian Superior Court of Justice yesterday handed down its findings in the case brought by the Calpe Environmental lobby ACEC that had brought a legal action against building close to the Salt Flats in the town. In its decision, the Superior Court stated that the plans to build some 2,200 homes around the Salt Flats could go ahead as planned as the special protective perimeter of the Flats was not being damaged by the building. Carol Saunders, the spokesperson for ACEC stated that she was 'highly disappointed' by the court decision, but added that she expected the building to stop as part of the moratorium on building in the Valencian Community declared by theEuropean Parliament.

Valencia Life 20.12.05
LOBBY FORMED
The Valencian Building Association, and the Chambers of Commerce of all three Provinces of the Community announced yesterday that they had formed a lobby aimed at combating the European Union that has been harshly critical of the Valencian Land Laws. In particular, the Valencian Commerce Federation- FACIAL - was particularly strident in its defence of the Valencian Community, which it said had come 'under an unprovoked attack' from the EU. Meanwhile yesterday, Rafael Blasco, the Conseller for the Territory insinuated that it was two British Building Societies - Nationwide andYorkshire - that had pressured the British government into rescinding the law over tax advantages for those who invest in property overseas. He added that over the last ten years, over 800,000 British families had decided to sell up in the UK and move to the Valencian Community, and this was having a disastrous effect on the UK housing market.

Valencia Life.19.11.05
BUILDING BOOM CONTINUES
Despite the recent criticism from the European Parliament over the Valencian Land Laws, the building boom in Alicante is continuing unabated, as during last week alone, the Official Bulletin of Alicante Province published plans to urbanize a total of 6.5 million square metres in the Province, with the building of 15,000 homes as well as at least two golf courses. If construction on the coast has almost reached its limits, most of these new projects are more inland such as in Elda/Petrel, where the Bulletin lastweek published plans for 7.500 homes and two golf courses, whilst Biar also presented a project for two golf courses and some 3,200 homes. For the moment, the Elda/Petrel project has been met with public opposition from the local water company.

VALENCIAN COMMUNITY 'UNDER ATTACK'
Valencia Life.

Although it was apparently evident at the World Travel Market in London last month, it has now been officially revealed that the four main tour operators that bring British Tourists to the Valencian Community in general and Benidorm in particular - TUI/Thomson, My Travel, Thomas Cook and FirstChoice - are selling more holidays to resorts other than those inside the Community. In particular, the new resorts appear to be in Croatia andMorocco, whilst many 'insiders' have stated that this is also a part of the campaign aimed at devaluing the international reputation of the ValencianCommunity, coming as it does after the European Parliament issued some very harsh words to the Community over its land laws. Many tourism experts in the Community estimate that the actions by these four companies will see a drop in British tourists by at least 15% next year, and they add that British tourism in the Community had been on a downhill slide since 2002, but looks set to be more noticed next year. Equally, Matias Perez Such, the Tourism Secretary for the ValencianCommunity, added that Turkey was also on the list of resorts and countries offering sun, sea and beaches along similar lines as the Valencian Community. Mr. Perez Such added that he had noticed 'certain goings-on' during the World Travel Market last month, and these included a legal firm that was giving talks that set out a position clearly against some of the laws in the Valencian Community. "And who was paying for this? He asked. Benjamin Muñoz, the Secretary of the Federation of Promoters, added that behind the campaign against the Valencian Community that has been started inEurope, and reflected in the British press 'as well as by the association AUN are hidden economic reasons by both the tour operators and several British Law firms'. "A case in point," he went on, "Is the British firmIrwin Mitchell that is taking in clients in order to help them out and toobtain compensation for those allegedly affected by the LRAU." Rafael Blasco, the Conseller for the Territory, also had his own views yesterday when he stated: "There are some very relevant facts that can help one understand the interests of the British Ambassador or the surprising implication of the British Labour Party in the European Parliament. Equally,there is the unexpected withdrawal - two days before the debate in theEuropean Parliament - by the Labour Government of a law that allowed tax reductions on homes bought outside the United Kingdom." Clearly furious at all this is Francisco Camps, the President of the Community, who yesterday officially asked Josep Borrell, the Speaker of the European Parliament, for permission to come to Brussels to address theEuropean Executive body. "Nobody is allowed to damage the image or prosperity of the Community," he stated, " No one can give us lessons in sustaining our goods and services and their future development, and we must defend the best interests of the Community on an international level."

EL PAÍS, Friday, December 16, 2005 NEWS / 3
C. VÁZQUEZ / E. MOLTÓ
Valencia / Alicante
A witty person once said: “Don’t steal — the government doesn’t like the competition.” The graffiti could have been referring to the regional government of Valencia, under fire from the European Union for a 1994 urbanization law that allows authorities to expropriate property from home-owners without their consent.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament voted 550 to 45 to support a report that called Valencia’s Urban Planning Regulatory Law (LRAU) a “violation of the basic rights of many thousands of European Union citizens.” Down in Valencia, the locals refer to it as the “land-grab law.”

In 2001, two years after lawyer José Crespo bought his home in San Juan, Alicante, expropriation rumors began to spread throughout the area. But inquiries with local officials yielded no answers. “I began to investigate, and I found that a company had presented a project to urbanize two million square meters, including my property,” he said. For two months, Crespo visited town hall each week to see if any more projects were on the books — he found nine in all. Some respected the existing homes, while others wanted to raze them. “It was humiliating to discover amid unintelligible plans what third parties wanted to do with your house,” Crespo said. “I began to think about Europe, and the European directives on public contracts.” A specialist in European law, Crespo said that the projects were not published in the official government gazette, and did not abide by the bloc’s rules of transparency and competition.

He wasn’t the only affected, and angry, homeowner. Over the past two years, the European Parliament has received about 15,000 complaints and claims from Valencia residents about the urbanization plan. Under the current law, existing homeowners are being asked to pay for building roads, sewers and lighting for new construction near their land. Also, some are being forced to abandon their land at knock-down prices.
In Finestrat de Benidorm, Juan and Karen Marco’s home falls into a territory scheduled for urbanization. The couple has owned the one-family house and the land around it for 20 years. “Now our house does not belong to us,” Juan Marco said. “They are paying us less than half of what the property is worth on the market, and we will have to rent an apartment. They don’t care about people, and it makes you feel helpless.”

Others, meanwhile, have been obliged by the law to pay for part of the planned infrastructure. The Gales, a British couple who moved to Benissa, Alicante, after retiring, are facing a 40,000 Euro bill and the loss of 800 square meters of their property. Another British couple, Graham and Janice Fisher, have lived for a decade in a rural house in Alicante near Mount Maigmó. The town hall now wants to convert 1.5 million square meters of the surrounding land into 1,300 houses. “We did see some people walking round part of the land near our house, measuring,” Jan Fisher told BBC radio in 2003. “Then we went along to the town hall, we saw that there was a plan already prepared to build thousands of houses on a mountainside where there are fewer than a hundred. We also saw we would have to pay thousands of euros towards this project.”

“The Ley Reguladora de la Actividad Urbanística is being used by unscrupulous developers to simply get their hands on huge tracts of land, irrespective of the fact that there are people already living there or perfectly legitimate landowners, house owners etc.,” Graham Fisher added. “This is an abuse.” They and thousands of other British citizens in the region have taken the local authorities to court.

At the moment, the European Union appears to be on their side. On Wednesday, the European Commission gave Spain three weeks to adapt the law to EU standards. If not, people such as the farmer Enrique Rubio will not only lose his home, but his livelihood. “They will destroy me,” he said. “It’s unfair. We only want to keep on working.” Rubio and his Eco Iris company cultivate greens such as lettuce, broccoli and celery on about 40,000 square meters of land. Valencia wants to confiscate 4,000 square meters to build low-income housing, and an unidentified amount for other construction. “They are robbing our land,” Rubio said. “They are taking advantage of people.

Sorry for the lack of updates.. I´ve had major computer problems.
Hopefully all back to normal soon.
Keep up the fight........
Jan.