A little more than three years later, with a government crisis, a change of leadership and organic restructuring in the Department of Urbanism in between, on March 10th the Sant Antoni City Council resolved the granting of licenses for the completion of the construction of two wooden houses with prefabricated parts in Can Germà.
A group of health workers formed a cooperative (Sociedad Cooperativa Els Sanadors) to address the problem of access to housing in Ibiza by building their own houses, and with a faster construction system. After the purchase of the land, on January 16th, 2019 the cooperative submitted the license application through the entry register of the Sant Antoni City Council. After more than the three months that the law establishes for the Administration to resolve the request, the promoters requested, on May 30th of that year, the certificate to certify the positive administrative silence. In the absence of a response, in November of that year, the health workers communicated that they were initiating the works due to positive silence.
The promoters relied on a judgment of the Constitutional Court which, in 2017, established that, in the case of a prefabricated dwelling, if the Administration does not respond to a license request within the maximum period established by law (three months), the promoter may invoke the positive silence and initiate the works, provided that the construction does not breach the territorial or urban planning ordinance. In fact, the cooperative also previously asked the Sant Antoni City Council “how it interpreted the regulation” on prefabricated buildings, but did not receive an answer either.
Sant Antoni reports technical discrepancies
Almost a year after the start of construction, in October 2020, the previous technician in charge of Urbanism issued a report against the evaluation, of the license application, understanding that, although it regarded houses built with pre-cut pieces of wood that are assembled, the construction technique “has little to do with that of prefabricated buildings, such as single-family homes, tiny houses or homes in shipping containers or prefabricated classrooms”.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.