The express license that legalizes and allows the rehabilitation of the Caminito restaurant, granted by emergency and behind the back of the president of the Consell de Formentera, Llorenç Córdoba, was not the only license processed in a Governing Board of the first months of Sa Unió under similar conditions. La Voz de Ibiza has been able to prove that in the first six months of its management, the coalition formed by PP and Compromis
approved eight other licenses that were not originally foreseen in the agenda. In these cases, they were approved on an emergency basis despite the fact that there was apparently no such urgency. Of those nine licenses so urgent that they could not wait a week, three were delivered in the absence of the president of the Consell. On Monday, November 11, Cordoba denounced in a press conference that “approvals of licenses in a suspicious manner in government boards where many people who normally are missing and that have been made by urgency”. The president of the Consell also said that he had informed the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of these cases. Although he did not give details of specific licenses, La Voz de Ibiza confirmed that Cordoba was referring to the license granted to Nimbus Formentera, SL for the reform of the Caminito restaurant, the future Lío de Formentera, in the Governing Board of December 21. On that day, Cordoba was in Palma. The license, according to experts consulted by La Voz de Ibiza, is null and void, as it contradicts the Urban Planning Law of the Balearic Islands by approving a basic project that breaches the permitted height with the condition that it be corrected through the execution project and also the Law of Activities, since the proposed activity is not allowed. The former president of the PP of Formentera and president of the Hotel Association of Formentera, Juan Manuel Costa Escanellas, is a joint administrator of this company as he has a minority stake along with the family of Ricardo Urgell, founder of the Pacha Group, and the son of the former owner of the Argentine restaurant. According to sources of the Consell, the president was not upset that the license was granted (which had all the favorable reports), but that it was processed behind his back. After the revelations of La Voz de Ibiza, Cordoba said in the interview published last week that he would talk to Urbanismo and “if it has to be reviewed, it will be reviewed”. An urgency that did not seem so. However, in the 48 hours prior to the December 21 meeting , three key documents were processed to approve the license. For more: almost a year after the license was granted, the Caminito works are stopped. Are there other cases of licenses granted under similar characteristics or that could be suspicious? There are. Although, logically, each case has its own particularities.
Bellavista Guesthouse
In the same Governing Board of December 21 there was another urgent issue corresponding to the area of Urbanism: the proposal to grant planning permission for urgent rehabilitation works on the facade of the Hostal Bellavista. Although it was treated that day as urgent, the request had been made eight months earlier, while the corresponding technical and legal reports, as well as the legal report in the case of Caminito, had been issued on December 20, 24 hours prior to the meeting. Of course, this is a very different case from Caminito, as the technical report justifies the urgency to be treated: “In order to avoid the uncontrolled collapse of other parts of the facades of the building, the urgency procedure is requested”. In the week prior to those two licenses, on December 15, 2023, the Governing Board granted an urban planning license for the reform of the hostel called “Can Rafalet”. It was an application registered on August 4, 2020 (more than three years before), and whose documentation was completed the same year. The legal report was made on December 13, 2023, that is, 48 hours before the granting of the license.
Without Cordoba
The other license granted without Cordoba occurred in the Governing Board of November 17. One of them was the initial approval of study of detail for the volumetric rearrangement of some plots in the industrial zone, originally requested on December 22, 2017(almost six years earlier), and whose required documentation was completed in July 2023. The technical report is dated September 2023, almost two months before the granting of the license. On the same November 17, the Governing Board also lifted the order to suspend the execution of construction work on a building of two semi-detached houses in C/ Isidor Macabich. In this case, however, the request was made on November 14 (three days earlier). In September, the Board had suspended the works in the aforementioned building until a new mid-grade technician took over.
More fast licenses
On September 29 the Governing Board, this time with Cordoba present, granted three building permits on an urgent basis. One of them was for the execution of works to expand the Virgen Milagrosa education center, requested in May of the previous year (one year and five months ago). In this case, the legal report was issued on September 28, 24 hours before the Governing Board. That September 29 was also the final approval of the urbanization project of the road included in the units of action located in the urban area of es Pujols, with date of entry in April 2016, 7 and a half years ago. The legal report is only one day before the granting of the license. In October two other town planning licenses were given that were not originally on the agenda. On the 6th of that month a license was given for the construction of a house with site at Can Toni Mateu, which had been requested 4 years and ten months ago and for which documentation was submitted until April 2023. The legal report is dated October 3, three days before the license was granted. On October 20, meanwhile, a license was granted to detach a plot of land and renovate the single-family house located there. The process began 4 years and 4 months earlier, although only on October 17, 2023 (72 hours before the license was granted) was the Legal Services report issued. Finally, on August 18, another urban planning license was delivered to legalize a single-family house and an annex, with an entry date 2 and a half years earlier. The legal report was only issued on August 14, only 4 days before that license.
