Parcent Mayoress answers her critics...and they say
she's lying!
Article first published in the July
2006 edition of Viva The Valley.
Reproduced here with the kind
permission of Ann Knight.
Parcent's Mayoress has
defended plans to build nearly 1,800 new houses on the outskirts of the pueblo
claiming the majority of villagers support the scheme.
In an exclusive
interview with Viva the Valley, Mari Carmen Lopez Fernandez accused her
political opponents of spreading “lies and misinformation” to whip up a storm
of protest over the decision to approve three new urbanisations on Parcent's
hillsides.
She said she understood
the genuine concerns of many campaigners fighting the plans but claimed many of
their fears were unfounded.
“The new urbanisations
in Jalón and Gata are horrible,” she declared. “That will only happen in
Parcent over my dead body.” She described the partially finished developments
in Jalón as an ugly “hongo” (meaning fungus) on the
mountainside.
Señora Lopez pledged
that the Parcent projects, if approved by the Valencian government, would be
tightly controlled and she promised that the village's picturesque hillsides
wouldn't be blighted by the same kind of rapid urban sprawl that has been seen
elsewhere in the valley.
“Every tree that is
removed will be replaced by at least two more of the same age and species,” she
said. “No-one will have their land taken from them and new houses will only be
built as individual plots are sold.”
She told Viva the Valley
that there would be no cheek-by-jowl blocks of houses constructed on the
outskirts of the village within a short space of time before buyers had been
found. She also stressed that, under the current law, no house would be built
higher than
The council's legal
adviser on urban law says she believes it will take at least five years before
the first new house is built under the scheme and up to 15 years for the
completion of all three building projects.
Señora Lopez said: “It's
all very well people wanting a small, tranquil village but it's no good if it
doesn't make any money. If Parcent doesn't grow it will die.”
“We need jobs for our
young people. Traditionally the village has relied on agriculture but you can't
make a living out of selling oranges and almonds these days.”
She said the new developments
would give a vital boost to the local economy and enable the village to have a
new school, medical centre, library and cultural centre. “We have a mountain of
books but no library so we have to keep them in the village school,” she said.
Señora Lopez, who was
born in Valencia but has lived in Parcent for 35 years, said she had been stung
by personal insults and abuse from protestors, most of whom had never bothered
to discuss the details of the development plans with her. She issued an open invitation
to anyone who wanted to meet her to discuss the projects and air their
concerns.
She rejected accusations
of a conflict of interest involving the council's urban planning councillor Ismael Reig, the brother of Roman
Reig who owns land in the development area and is an
agent for the promoters Terras de l'Horta.
She promised that Roman Reig would have no direct
involvement in actively promoting the urbanisation schemes. She also rubbished
claims, widely reported in the Spanish press, that the singer Julio Iglesias
was one of the financial backers of the proposed development.
The biggest and most
controversial of the three schemes involves the development of an urbanisation
with more than 1,400 houses in the area of El Repla.
But the Mayoress stressed that the area had been classified as “urbanizable ” (designated for building) since
1991 and 200 of the 1,400 houses in the project had already been built many
years ago without the appropriate licences. The current owners of those 200
houses have been blocked from improving their properties with the addition of
swimming pools, extensions etc because the land owners have never been paid by
the original developers.
Señora Lopez said that
under the new scheme, the land owners would be compensated and the property
owners would benefit from the lifting of the moratorium on extending their
homes. These owners will have to pay for the provision of services which they
are not currently receiving (paved roads, street lighting, sewage disposal etc)
but which will form part of the development project.
The council's technical
adviser says that any home owner who can't afford to pay the infrastructure
charge will be able to raise the money by selling their new “right to build”.
This would not involve selling their actual land or property but it would
enable the buyer to increase the density of construction permitted on another
area of the urbanisation (the overall density will be fixed as a ratio of
construction per square metre to total square metres of land).
Campaigners call for a referendum
Campaigners fighting the
urbanisation plans have reacted furiously to the Mayoress’ comments accusing
her of “lies and blatant propaganda.”
Jenny Bussey, who has lived
in Parcent for 18 years and is an elected Democratic Coalition councillor,
issued the following statement:
“No one really knows how
many villagers are in favour or not as no one has asked them. The Coalicion Democratica de Parcent
[opposition party] has asked for a referendum so that this can be ascertained,
with the risk that it may go in favour of the development that the PP are
trying to get through. Certainly there are land-owners who would like it
to go ahead, especially those who are also builders, such as Roman Reig, who has bought up large areas of El Repla to add to the land he already owned there.
The provision of
new schools and medical centres usually come under the auspices of the
Valencian Generalitat or even at national government
level. We can ask for new facilities and have the land available,
but when they actually get built is another matter – look at Orba's Medical
Centre that took 13 years to complete, and Jalón is still waiting for anything
to be done five years after allocating land for theirs. A library only
needs premises that can be provided by the local council and, with all the
money the present council have managed to get from funds available from
Alicante to renovate old buildings in Parcent, we should soon have somewhere
for the books at present in store to be once more available. Out of interest,
these renovations were already requested by the previous CDP
administration but they were always told there were no
funds available.
During the last year
Parcent has had approved grants from Alicante worth more than those for
the all the rest of the villages in the valley put together!
The three areas
for the PAIs (Programas de
Actuation Integrada) now being processed were on a
1991 plan of Parcent under what are called "Normas
subsidiarias". This was not a General Plan for
Parcent. When the CDP wanted to develop these
areas in 1999, they were told by the Conselleria de Territorio y Vivienda in Alicante
that they would have to be brought up-to-date, but this was found not to be possible
and the Conselleria then said that a full General
Plan would have to be drawn up. This was started in 2001 but, as it takes up to
four years to complete, it was not finished before the last election at which
the PP were elected. They chose to ignore the work already done (costing
some six million pesetas) and went back to the old "Normas
Subsidiarias" plan, apparently with the approval
of the Conselleria that had said no previously. The
PP accepted three PAIs based on the NNSS from developers last year, and these were
provisionally passed at the infamous council meeting on 30th January 2006, at
which a draft General Plan was also presented, including these areas as part of
the Plan.
We realise that
the proposed houses would not mushroom overnight BUT all three PAIs have provision for terrace houses of three
storeys, which we consider inappropriate in the countryside, and which will
give a density of 15 houses per hectare, greater than that provided for in the
old NNSS (13 houses per hectare). There will also be
a lot of land lost to infrastructure, including a 4-lane highway out of
proportion to our village - and going from nowhere to nowhere! (Or are there
plans to join up with other villages throughout the valley, which we know
nothing about?). Beside this, no one has proved that there is any such demand
for houses in our area - certainly Parcent needs to expand a bit, but these
developments would not be connected to the existing village until the new
(dreadful) General Plan is executed, with ever more houses being planned to
join up with all the urbanisations.
The number of
illegal houses is about 100, not the 200 as stated by the Mayoress. I do
not know whether it is true or not that the original land owners were not
paid when the illegal development was started over 20 years ago, while a PP
council was in power. It is more likely that they were only given a very low
price for their land. The Barranquet Property Owners Associaton has negotiated a possible deal with the
developers of El Repla, but this is not signed,
sealed or delivered yet. Those who still own land in the area - mostly Spanish
people - could find themselves still saddled with infrastructure costs that the
home-owners will not have to pay, which is patently unfair. I believe that
LUV (the new law which replaced the notorious LRAU “land grab” law earlier this year) makes provisions
for illegal houses to be legalised anyway, so really they are only getting what
is due to them.
The idea of
planting mature trees is ridiculous with regard to the expense and the
likelihood of losing half of them unless endless water is available to keep
them alive while they settle in. Water being another bone of
contention as the PP claim there is a practically unlimited supply, while the
farmers say that it there is not - there is frequently insufficient for normal
irrigation in summer now. Also the local water supply is controlled by a
large organisation with jurisdiction over a wide area, far beyond Parcent and
its needs.
Mari
Carmen thinks this development will create jobs for Parcentinos,
which we all doubt as, apart from the developers themselves and their
families, any building work will be done by immigrants from poorer
countries in Europe or South America, who will be paid a pittance, as is
already happening on El Arenal. Whether Parcentinos will ever take the opportunity to provide
services for the people living in these urbanisations remains to be seen - it
has hardly happened so far. Most services are provided by people living
elsewhere, often other ex-pats.”
A "battle for hearts and minds" says local residents'
leader
Mark Harrison, president
of the Neighbours and Residents Association of El Repla,
had this to say in response to the Mayoress' comments:
“There has never been
any official (legal) notification of the plans to any of the residents in
Sector Repla. We only found out about the plans when
one of the residents asked for permission to build a swimming pool only to be
told "no" because there was a road going through her garden.
The PP promised in their
last election manifesto to finalise a new General Plan for Parcent, but
did nothing for almost 3 years other than meet with developers and encourage
the submission of three new PAIs.
On 22 November 2005 the
Mayor and Councillor Ismael Reig
Poquet (brother of one of the developers) promised
our association (at a meeting attended by our lawyer) that the plan for our
area was paralysed and would not be progressed until a new draft General Plan
had been finalised and fully consulted. Then on 30th January 2006 they called a
meeting and approved a first draft of a General Plan at the same time that they
approved three new PAIs including the plan for Sector
Repla
On 26th January Mari
Carmen asked to speak at a scheduled meeting of our association. We
allowed her to speak and she offered the usual platitudes about
understanding our concerns. Then she waited until we had left the town hall
before posting the notice convening the “Pleno”
three days later to approve the plans. All this was just two days before
the LRAU was scrapped.
On the day of the Pleno, Roman Reig Poquet, brother of councillor Ismael
Reig Poquet, visited my
house to plead with me to drop our objections to the plan from Terras de L'Horta (Ballester). He said he was now an authorised agent (apoderado) for Terras de L'Horta (a fact which was subsequently confirmed by a
search of the Register of Companies - I have the document). He
offered us everything - no land confiscation, no charges for infrastructure -
if only we would withdraw our objections and negotiate. This offer was
subsequently rejected overwhelmingly by our Association.
Before the meeting Ismael Reig Poquet
was advised by the Borough Secretary that he must not vote on the matter because
of his brother's involvement. He ignored this advice and voted in favour of the
plan.
The Borough Secretary
also has advice from the Consel Juridic
Consultivo in Valencia (a kind of Counsel's opinion -
I have a copy of the 32 page document) that the whole basis of the plan is
illegal and could (should) be annulled. They chose to ignore this.
Mari Carmen often states
that the majority of Sector Repla is in favour of the
plan. This is a deliberate distortion of the facts. What she means is
that the owners of the majority of the land (four or five) support the
plan - they would do wouldn't they, since they have all done a deal with the
developer!
Another lie is the
frequently quoted distortion that the town hall had to approve the plan
otherwise they would have to pay a great deal of money by way of compensation
(I actually have this one in writing from Mari Carmen). Our lawyer and another
independent lawyer have categorically contradicted this. Just because land is urbanisable does not mean it has to be urbanised. The town
hall can say no to any plan if they so choose.
The same is true of the
argument that the land in Sector Repla has been zoned
as urbanisable since 1991 and therefore it has to be
developed. The old Normas Subsidiarias
plan from 1991 was NOT a General Plan; it was approved in the days before
anyone ever thought about the environment, sustainability, Local Agenda 21 etc.
This plan can, and should, be revoked. Denia, for
example, recently declassified more than one million square metres of land
previously zoned as urbanisable. It CAN be done if
there is a political will.
The most disgraceful lie
(from the Mayoress) is that the houses in this area are illegal - this is just
said to frighten us and turn the village against us. The real fact is that
almost all of the houses were approved by the town hall in the 1980s (i.e. before the 1991 Plan). Yes, the approvals were
illegal because they were illegally granted by the town hall who knew exactly
what they were doing in allowing houses to be built on small plots on rustic
land. And guess who was the mayor at the time - none other than Mari Carmen's
husband! It is disgraceful to imply that the owners have acted illegally when
many of them paid the original developer for infrastructure which was never
provided - a situation which the town hall has failed over the years to
rectify - until now when they expect us to pay again. And as for the benefit of
being able, legally, to extend our homes or build pools, it is laughable since
it is the town hall who created this situation in the first place. As for
the claim that the original landowners were not paid - whose fault is this? The
town hall's and definitely not the residents who all bought and paid for their
houses in good faith. In any event we all have escrituras
to prove our legal ownership.
Mari Carmen tells people
in the village that if these plans do not go ahead there will be no money for
future investment. She also tells people that if they oppose these plans the
social centre will not be made available to them. She tried to stop Veins
de Parcent from collecting signatures in a square during a recent fair and
issued an edict to say that they would be denounced if they did not stop. A
similar edict was issued for the Pleno in January
limiting attendance at the meeting to just 40 people although there was
room for many more. This was after packing the meeting with her supporters.
Already, one local
shopkeeper who dared to come out against the town hall, has seen her trade drop
by 20%.
The majority of the
houses planned for this sector (El Repla) are adosados (town houses) of the type we can all now
see in the Almazara Urbanisation in Jalón - worse
still, Almazara is less than 300 properties and they
want to build 1500 of these concrete boxes in one of the most
beautiful parts of this valley. Worse still, they are nearly all designed as
holiday homes - empty for most of the year - so where's the economic benefit in
that?
As for the need for a
school and library - again it's just a con. Tiny concrete holiday homes will
not attract families to live permanently in Parcent - so where's the demand for
school places? And so what if Parcent gains a library - like the one in Alcalali, it will probably only be open a couple of days a
week and barely used. Is that a price worth paying in return for the
destruction of a whole village and its way of life?
As for the argument that
this will only happen gradually, so what? It still means the ultimate
destruction of this part of the valley. Worse still, the developers will have
to put all the infrastructure in at the beginning - so we face the prospect of
looking out over a vast desert of roads carved into the mountain for the next
20 years as we can already see in Pedreguer and Gata
de Gorgos. And remember Sector Repla
is "just" 1,500 houses - the draft General Plan envisages another
2000 on top of these. Welcome to the mayor's vision for La Grand
Ciudad de Parcent.
We are not against
progress. There is plenty of scope for a General Plan that enables the village
to expand and develop in a gradual, sustainable way without destroying the very
things that make Parcent special. This plan is a sell out - of the village, of
the people and of a whole way of life. If Mari Carmen and the developers
are so confident that their vision of the future is the right one, let them put
their ideas to the people, open up an informed debate and hold a referendum.
Otherwise the suspicion will remain that these proposals are not for the
benefit of the community, but for benefit of a few people who have a vested
interest.
In the weeks and months
to come, there will be a battle for the hearts and minds of the people of
Parcent. I only hope that they will be able to reach their own conclusions
based on facts and not the kind of blatant propaganda and manipulation we have
so far witnessed."
With thanks to Ann Knight
Editor
/ Webmaster www.vivathevalley.com