Alex Trelinski
PLANS for two 80-metre-high skyscrapers in Torrevieja’s Acequion beach area have been scuppered by the Supreme Court and the Valencian High Court of Justice.
Judges backed negative environmental impact study reports as ‘binding and mandatory’ from the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
The ‘Baraka Towers’ consisting of 25 storeys each would have been built on land close to the seafront and next to the Doña Sinforosa park.
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The project had been approved at the end of 2021 by the Partido Popular-controlled Torrevieja council despite critical environmental impact studies.
It was reported a few months later that the council would have to pay ‘millions of euros’ of compensation to the Baraka group if the project was blocked in the courts.
The Ecological Transition Ministry report said the towers would ‘limit vision and act as an unwanted vertical effect that breaks the landscape’.
The Madrid and Valencia courts said the Coastal Law would be broken and quoted article 30 which says ‘the formation of architectural screens or accumulation of volumes must be avoided’.
They ruled such a ‘screen’ would be built in an area where there are no other skyscraper-style buildings.
Torrevieja council backed the development as article 30 of the Coastal Law refers to ‘unplanned land’ which it claims did not apply to the proposed site as it came under an urban plan approved back in 1988.
Other skyscrapers have been proposed in other Torrevieja seafront locations, which may now be threatened due to court decisions setting a precedent.
The Costas Authority is seeking to stop tower developments on land adjacent to the Baraka site, as well as at Los Naufragos, and Cala de Palange- a total of 15 skyscrapers.
