Monday, November 27, 2023, 00:10
For environmentalists, a reservoir of nature that one day populated the coast of Orihuela; For builders, a front-line wasteland full of bushes and with immense untapped potential in the lucrative business of residential tourism. This is the chess game in which at stake is the loss of the last virgin kilometer of the Oriola coast. A duel that lasts more than a decade and in which, last week, the seconds declared check to the king. The TSJ of the Valencian Community dismissed the appeals from State Highways and Cambiemos and paved the way for the excavators to continue doing what they have done in the last five months, drawing the lines of the future streets, previously blurred, and now more visible than never.
The checkmate will come soon if, finally, Carreteras decides not to continue the legal battle against the 2,200 homes of the Gomendio group by submitting an appeal to the Supreme Court. Sources from Cambiemos, for their part, assure LA VERDAD that they trust their continuity in the judicial fight to the decision made by the State. Both, they say, “will go hand in hand.” Even at the risk of bearing legal costs.
The fight against the urbanization of Cala Mosca is undoubtedly in the being of the local formation, which has championed in the last eight years, hand in hand with the neighborhood platform Save Cala Mosca, the fight to save this coastal enclave. But, before them, others already marked the path of a case that even crossed the thick walls of the European institutions.
The year was 2007. A party of residents of Orihuela Costa, Claro, ran for election and was the winner on the coast. At that time, and by virtue of a modification of the General Plan, Gomendio began the works to urbanize Cala Mosca. Of course, today integrated into the PP, he launches a signature campaign to take the matter to Brussels. “We collected more than 7,000 in two years to demand the intervention of the European Parliament and prevent the destruction of Cala Mosca,” recalls the former leader of said group, Bob Houliston.
Once these signatures were presented to the EU in 2010, the requests were attended to after visits by both Houliston and the then mayor, Monserrate Guillén (The Greens), who at that time headed the tripartite party that kept the PP out of the local government for four years. “The European Parliament asked to paralyze the works until there was an environmental impact study and the protection of two vulnerable and protected species was guaranteed, the cat’s head jarilla and the snail ‘Turodella mauretanica’,” he recalls.
The victory of the conservationists and the neighbors thus managed to delay the project for more than a decade. During this time, Gomendio modified his plans to generate a microreserve for these species within his lands. The approval of the environmental impact by the Generalitat did not arrive until more than a decade later, in July of last year. Later, and after a tense internal crisis, the previous PSOE-Cs government gave final approval in May to the resumption of the works.
A decision that Houliston reproaches is the fault of Ciudadanos, “visible friends of the builder” and which he calls “passivity of the PSOE.” He warns that construction in this enclave will generate new problems for Orihuela Costa. “There are no services, nor guarantee that there are sufficient resources for an urbanization of these dimensions,” he denounces, alluding to the already lack of water in the area. “We were a small party in a fight of David against Goliath, but it allowed us to win a lot of time,” Houliston chests out in the hope that the only other “Goliath” – read the State – capable of fighting Gomendio will not yet throw in the towel and send your last bishop to the rescue of a king just one move away from checkmate.
The former leader of Cambiemos appreciates “urban violence”
Cambiemos came out in response to the ruling with measured words in which he regretted the ruling, but the one who has been most forceful is the one who was the leader of the group until last July, Carlos Bernabé. Whoever led the political fight against Gomendio in the last eight years assures that “building in Cala Mosca is urban violence no matter what the court says. “The legal criteria of the TSJ really bother me.” For Bernabé “what was said by the court is terrible and weakens the options of protecting Orihuela against the brick lords and those who protect them from the City Council: PP, Ciudadanos, PSOE and Vox.”
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