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article_detail
Date Published: 15/04/2021
ARCHIVED - The ongoing issue of man versus sea in Guardamar
Property owners have placed protective breakwater materials on the Playa de Babilonia despite opposition from the Town Hall and from the Coastal authorities
In 2018, the concession of public domain along the Vega Baja coast expired, leading to an ongoing court battle between the Coastal authorities (known in Spanish as Costas) and the owners of 90 properties in the area, including those on the Playa de Babilonia.
The properties in question, located on Avenida Ingeniero Codorniu, were built nearly a century ago on the beachfront and, when the concession ran out in 2018, the owners requested an extension but Costas denied this request, as they believe that these properties occupy the publicly owned shoreline of the sea, so should be demolished and the beachfront restored.
Many of the residents have since taken the matter before the National Court, which has not yet resolved the issue, and questioned the Coastal authorities’ criteria, as other buildings in the Vega Baja which are also located on the beachfront, such as Luz Mar on the Playa de Los Locos, have been granted an extension of the concession of public domain.
Conversely, there have also been many demolitions and these are also taking place in other coastal regions of Spain; at the moment there is a battle underway in Los Nietos in neighbouring Murcia region, with Costas on the verge of demolishing another run of beachfront properties.
The owners of these properties have been protecting their properties, many of which are holiday homes, with breakwater materials and rocks since 2016, when poor weather conditions caused the pavement separating the houses from the beach to collapse.
Costas has consistently made formal complaints about the use of these materials.
However, the High Court of Valencia and the Supreme Court have both ruled in favour of the residents and have stated that property owners should be allowed to protect their homes from the waves during harsh weather conditions as long as they restore the area to its previous state once the danger has passed.
Furthermore, the local organization, Asociación de Babilonia, have warned that the Avenida Ingeniero Codorniu has several sinkholes which could cause the road to collapse, leaving some of the properties without road access. This Association has threatened to take the local Town Hall to court if they don’t resolve the issue.
In the past few days, police officers in Guardamar have issued further denuncias against these property owners for piling up stones to protect their properties from the stormy weather conditions; this information will now be sent to Costas, who will open an administrative procedure prosecuting the residents.
And to top all of this off, heavier storms in the last few years, have left the council battling against Costas and the elements in a relentless battle to prevent the gradual process of erosion which relentlessly strips sand from the beaches of the municipality and eats into the hard landscaping of the coast and urban development of coastal habitation.
Arguments over the installation of breakwaters to try and protect the coastline continue, but as the images taken last weekend during the latest patch of stormy weather clearly show, the fight between man attempting to impose his will on the sea and the natural world seem to be angling towards the forces of nature at the moment.
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