While waiting to be summoned by the City Council of Sant Josep, the owners of the Don Pepe apartments Don Pepe apartments apartments maintain the hope that the declaration of ruin will be reversed and thus be able to take advantage of the urban amnesty contemplated in the decree of administrative simplification and regularize the building that is out of order and whose building permit, if it existed, has never appeared. However, the Coastal legislation puts an obstacle in this process. Block A of the Don Pepe apartments was evicted between 2020 and 2021 due to an alleged deterioration of the structure that, according to the neighbors, is not such. They have even submitted to the City Council a report prepared by a doctor in Architecture, a professor at the University of Valencia and a specialist in structures in which she states that “there is no ruin“. “Tastings were made, studies were made and there is no risk of ruin,” explained Silvia Hernandez, spokesperson for the neighbors and one of the affected owners, to La Voz de Ibiza. In addition, she explained that they are still “waiting for the meeting we requested of the Monitoring Committee“. All despite the fact that the mayor Vicent Roig (PP) promised to convene them urgently, after the spontaneous meeting they had on October 25 after two neighbors skipped the pre-sanctioned two neighbors jumped the seal and entered their homes.
The possible solution
The 103 owners – which include those evicted from block A and the inhabitants of block B who live in complete uncertainty – are betting on a way out: reversing the declaration of ruin and taking advantage of the urban planning amnesty established in the administrative simplification decree so that the neighbors can undertake the necessary repairs and the structure will not be demolished. For its part, the Consistory, according to the mayor, will request a new technical report on the state of block A. Roig said that if buildings in similar conditions have been able to be recovered, the Don Pepe could have a viable solution. The Govern has shown itself in favor of legalizing the Don Pepe through the amnesty, which allows the regularization of constructions in the Don Pepe block.which allows the regularization of out-of-order constructions.
Impediment in sight
Among the additional provisions, the Administrative Simplification Decree establishes a “.procedure for the extraordinary legalization of buildings, constructions, installations and existing uses on rural land”.
This seeks the “reestablishment of the urban planning legality” of certain types of constructions. However, this amnesty does not cover buildings located in coastal areas, as is the case of the Don Pepe apartments, so it would be necessary to modify the decree to allow their legalization. In paragraph B of point 5 of the seventh additional provision clarifies that this provision does not apply to “buildings, constructions or facilities located in the public domain, in the protection area of roads or in the easements derived from the Coastal legislation“. This last point would include the Don Pepe. As can be seen in the following image, both blocks are partially affected by the right of way.
The Decree Law 3/2024, of May 24, on urgent measures of simplification and administrative rationalization of the public administrations of the Balearic Islands, known as Omnibus, which provides for the conditions of the amnesty is in the process of parliamentary processing for its validation and conversion into law and, therefore, it is relatively simple to introduce an amendment don Pepe that eliminates the pitfall of the Costas regulations. Politically, all the messages from senior PP officials are along these lines. “We are committed to study this way, which seems to us very interesting since the neighbors could keep their houses, as they have always asked for.” “On an island like Ibiza with the serious housing problem it suffers, avoiding the demolition of a hundred homes also seems a good option,” said the then Councilor for Housing, Marta Vidal, in July after meeting with the neighbors. The mayor of Sant Josep, Vicent Roig, has been expressing himself in similar terms.
