The express license that Sa Unió granted urgently and behind Llorenç Córdoba’s back to the Caminito restaurant , taking advantage of a government meeting that the president could not attend, should never have been granted in the terms in which it was agreed. The former president of the PP of Formentera, Juan Manuel Costa Escanellas Paya, is a minority partner of the developer together with the family of Ricardo Urgell, founder of Pacha. Also participating in the project is the son of the owner of the former Caminito, the chef Stefano Trigo . As La Voz de Ibiza has been able to accredit and has confirmed through several experts in urbanism, the license does not comply with the Law of Urbanism of the Balearic Islands (LUIB) insofar as the basic authorized project does not comply with the regulations in what refers to the height of the second floor of the building. And its concession would be a full-fledged favored treatment. This license, granted on December 21, 2023 thanks to its incorporation to the agenda thanks to a hardly justifiable urgency when the works have not yet begun, is part of the documentation that the president Llorenç Cordoba has sent to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, as he revealed at the press conference last week. The last steps of the file were carried out with astonishing speed. In the previous 48 hours the workers of the Consell processed three key documents: report with the verification of the area of activities, legal report and agreement proposal.
Irregularity
In the project to convert the old restaurant into a place with a show, in the image and likeness of the Lío de Ibizaincluded an increase in the height of the building in the two-story sector, from 7.99 meters to 9.16 meters.
In the technical report, dated November 2, 2023, alludes to “the prohibition of increase in volume, height and surface of existing buildings”, contained in Law 22/1988 (Coastal Law). However, the technical report urges to “report FAVORABLY the granting of planning permission”, but “provided that, together with the execution project, the amendment” of two points is incorporated:
- The overall height of the two-story portion will have to be limited to the currently existing height of 7.99 meters.
- The height of the stone wall sections from the facade to the terrace shall be limited to 4.66 meters, the total height of the one-story portion shall be limited to 4.66 meters.
Thus, the express license granted to Nimbus Formentera, SL, of which the former mayor of Formentera and president of the Hotel Association of Formentera is a joint administrator, authorized a project despite the fact that it does not comply with the regulations, according to the reports themselves, to be modified in the execution phase of the works.
Illegal countermeasure
In addition to being a contradiction in terms to approve a basic project that does not comply with regulations, it is contrary to the Urban Planning Law of the Balearic Islands, specifically Article 152.
For this reason we would be facing an exceptional case, since it is an elementary principle that the execution project can never modify the basic project, which is the one that is presented to obtain a license and in which basic parameters such as height, volume and occupation of the plot are set, that is, the dimensions that must comply with the urban planning regulations in force. With the approval of the basic project, “sufficient to apply for the urban planning license”, according to the law, the technicians in charge of the project design the execution project, a much more exhaustive document that cannot, logically, modify the previous one and to which all the structural calculations and the installations project and other unnecessary details are added in order to obtain a license. It would not make sense to spend money and effort on an executive project when there is no certainty that it has the license and that it will actually be executed.
The basic project cannot be modified
“The execution project has to develop the basic project and define the work in its entirety with the complete determination of details and specifications of all the materials, elements, construction systems and equipment, in accordance with the determinations of the Technical Building Code, and cannot lower the performance declared in the basic project, nor alter the uses and conditions under which the urban planning license was granted and, if applicable, the concessions or other administrative authorizations”. Despite the evidence of the rule and the fact that the regulation cannot be clearer, that it is logically the usual practice and that all architects and urban lawyers and technicians involved in a work know that the execution project cannot alter the basic one, this was the way used by Sa Unió to authorize the legalization of the Caminito building and its subsequent rehabilitation.
Gaining time
This surreal and surprising way of proceeding of the Urban Planning Department of the Consell de Formentera, then in the hands of the vice president and president of Compromís, Javier Serra, allowed the promoters to gain time, who aspired to open the premises at the beginning of last season. Faced with a basic project that does not comply with the regulations, the Consell had two ways: either urge the promoters to submit a new basic project adjusted to the planning to be reported again or deny the license and start a new file. In both cases, much longer than the third way taken out of the sleeve by the Consell de Formentera. In spite of these clamorous evidences, the incorporation to the planning of the building and the works of reform of the same one have all the favorable reports, so much internal of the Consell de Formentera, as of diverse organisms of the Balearic Government and of the Demarcation of Coasts of the Balearic Islands.
