The Grup d’Estudis de la Naturalesa (GEN) opposes the insular regulation that allows the tourist use of farmhouses. For the president of the ecologist group, Joan Carles Palerm, the proposal means “playing everything on the same field”. Palerm recalls that the GEN presented objections against the proposal, and explains that he does not understand that “the only way out to give possibility to the owners of a heritage property – in reference to the farmhouses – is to convert it into tourist housing.
According to him, “it is a very easy way out, but it is not the right one”, since, he says, “other things should be done than transforming the interior of the island into a potential tourist area” “to make the countryside profitable”. Palerm believes that, with this new initiative, there will be many homes that will build a pool to offer an attractive offer, and also warns that it will contribute to the proliferation of vehicles in these areas.
The GEN, which already spoke out in June against this decision, has not been the only platform in the field of environmental protection that has been against this measure. Prou already expressed -also in June- its rejection of this measure, and demanded that money from the Ecotasa be allocated to farmers to prevent this housing being used for tourist purposes.
The initiative
In May, the Consell de Ibiza announced its intention to modify the Plan Territorial Insular (PTI) to allow the tourist use of rural dwellings on any type of land built before 1956, which was reported in this newspaper at the time, and approved a regulation whereby, in the absence of modifying the PTI, farmhouses on rural land can be rented out, provided that a maximum of three rooms are offered (with two beds in each), and that they are rented out for a maximum of 60 days.
On the island of Ibiza there are 1,040 rural houses registered, according to what this newspaper published in June, so the maximum number of extra tourist places that this legislation would allow would be around 6,000.