The environmental group GEN-GOB opposes the project to build 532 subsidized housing units (VPO) and a large urban park in Ca n’Escandell, in the city of Ibiza. GEN has sent a letter of allegations to the Environmental Commission of the Balearic Islands against the urbanization project promoted by the State Land Entity (Sepes) and asks it to report against it because it responds to “an obsolete and disastrous model that leads us to the collapse and destruction of the quality of life on the planet”.
Aerial image of the buildings and the projected park in Ca n’Escandell. | D. I.
The ecologists warn that the project is “a case of embezzlement of public funds” and point out that “the regularization of the wells” for the aquifer of sa Serra Grossa necessary to unblock the new General Urban Development Plan (PGOU) and the execution of this project, could be “a crime against natural resources and the environment”. “We cannot continue to exploit wells that are no longer drinkable. It is urgent to stop extractions and to plan recharges to try to recover them,” they emphasize. “Currently, according to data from the revision of the hydrological plan, the exploitation of this resource is almost 137%,” they add.
The opposition of GEN is based mainly on the fact that before building new housing developments, also in a former agricultural area, those that are empty should be occupied. “The justification that serves as a basis to continue overcrowding and building in the municipality is not real. According to news that appeared this year in the press from municipal sources, in 25% of the apartments in the municipality there is no one registered, which means “a minimum of 6,000 properties where no one lives”, with “a capacity for at least 18,000 people”. The City Council suspects that “a large number of them” are destined for “illegal tourist rental”, emphasizes the GEN. In fact, the ecologists add, the Consistory has already located more than 130 illegal tourist apartments, “a figure that seems to be a small fraction of the existing ones”.
GEN stresses “human and urban saturation”
Thus, GEN stresses that “the most serious problems affecting the municipality and the island of Ibiza are the tourist overcrowding and urban saturation”. “To overcrowd even more will only aggravate the problem, nothing is solved,” they stress, while recalling that the city of Ibiza is “the most densely populated of the Balearic Islands and one of the most densely populated in the whole of Spain.”
“At this moment, the island is close to 260 inhabitants per square kilometer, to which is added perhaps the greatest tourist pressure in the world, with 25 tourists per inhabitant per year. Faced with this unsustainable situation, new urban growth continues to be proposed on rural land,” criticizes GEN-GOB in its allegations.
Therefore, the environmental group, which also notes that the project does not have an economic and financial study to justify it, proposes as an alternative “the gradual purchase of homes that come on the market by the Administration to dedicate them to VPO for rent”. Currently there are more than 800 for sale in a single real estate portal, they point out. “This would mean a very important saving for the public coffers and, in addition, would avoid the socioeconomic segregation of citizens,” says the brief of allegations.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.