A Madrid judge has ordered the temporary halt of construction work on a luxury housing development of 1,050 homes that aims to raze 70 hectares of forest in Pozuelo de Alarcón, the municipality with the highest income in Spain. The ruling, from Madrid’s 9th Administrative Court, stresses that this is an area “of great botanical and ecological value.” It is dated this Friday and was made public this Saturday by the appellants, the organization Ecologistas en Acción. The decision comes after the PP City Council in this municipality in the northwest of the capital put the project on hold in mid-July, in response to an administrative appeal by the PSOE.
The decision recognises the “public interest” raised by the planned urban development and points out the “dilemma” that arises when “determining whether the interests defended by the appellant, protection of the environment, are of greater intensity than the public and private interest in carrying out the development”, stressing that the issue “has no easy solution, especially at this stage of the process”.
The project was approved by the local Government Board on April 17. The work will transform 70 hectares of forest into a luxury neighbourhood of 1,050 homes, which means the arrival of around 4,000 residents to an area where less than 2,000 live today. This work initially involves the felling of a thousand trees just for the construction of the roads. Around 300 have already been cut down since the beginning of June, including oaks with trunks up to 40 centimetres in diameter.
Ecologists in Action have highlighted that the Dehesa de Montegancedo is one of the few undeveloped areas in Pozuelo de Alarcón. It is a park populated with abundant holm oaks, cork oaks, kermes oaks, gall oaks, stone pines and junipers. More than one hundred animal species inhabit the area, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds, some of which are of great importance, such as the imperial eagle, the black vulture and the red kite, according to a study on the environmental value of this area, signed by the doctor in environmental sciences Daniel Fuentes.
The City Council has regretted that a project planned since 2002, which also includes its first housing plan for large families, is being “politicised”.
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