Alex Trelinski
A COSTA Blanca council will have to pay the equivalent of a third of its annual budget as compensation for an illegally-approved building that was nodded through in 2008.
The current San Fulgencio administration in the south of Alicante province has lost an appeal to the Valencian Supreme Court over having to shell-out €2.6 million in payments to the developer.
The Court backed a compensation claim by developer Rivati for being unable to complete the so-called Olympic Village project on the La Marina urbanisation.
The current San Fulgencio council launched an appeal against an initial High Court judgment against it and will have to pay legal costs.
Rivati is now entitled to €2.6 million, though back in 2017 it demanded €13.7 million.
The San Fulgencio council under then-mayor Trinidad Martinez illegally granted Rivati building licences in 2008 on land which should only have been allocated for sports and non-residential use.
Martinez and two other councillors- along with three council employees- were all given prison terms of up to 17 months after their 2015 conviction.
Work on eight blocks of flats had started- of which three were completed, with the rest partially-built.
Around 50 families are said to live in the complex.
San Fulgencio mayor, Jose Maria Ballester, said: “We have no choice but to pay for the fraud and malpractice of past rulers.”
The €2.6 million total is equivalent to 30% of the council’s current annual expenditure serving 9,900 residents.
“We will pass on the sum to the people who perpetrated the fraud and it’s right that it should be them who are civilly liable and not the San Fulgencio population,” the mayor added.
The 2015 criminal case judgement ruled that the convicted council employees were not liable for losses but that clemency did not extend to the three convicted politicians.
