Pozuelo fines the real estate company that cut down 214 trees, some of them centuries old, with only 263,000 euros

At least 263,000 euros will be charged to the real estate company Adeas Homes for cutting down 214 trees, some of them centuries old and in perfect condition, from the Montegancedo forest in Pozuelo de Alarcón. This was decided by the plenary session of the City Council, which met this Thursday in an extraordinary session to debate the sanctioning regime against the construction company for the events that occurred in May 2023. The parties that voted in favor of the proposal were the PSOE, Somos Pozuelo and the PP. The only party that abstained was Vox, as well as the independent councilor Juan Ignacio Fernández Tomás, who was also part of the far-right group, before the party split in the Madrid municipality. The sanction comes weeks after the 9th contentious court of Madrid paralyzed the works, after a appeal filed by Ecologists in Action.

The felling began in the spring of 2023, after the City Council asked the real estate company to clear the Montegancedo land to avoid forest fires with the arrival of summer. Susana Garrote, who lives in the La Cabaña sector adjacent to the property, was the first to notice the arrival of the chainsaw. “I was walking with my dog ​​and I saw a patrol of workers cutting down trees,” says the 50-year-old resident. “I approached the boss to ask him what they were doing and he replied that they were simply collecting and cutting some branches to avoid fires.” She didn’t believe it. “I knew it was indiscriminate felling,” she recalls, so she notified the police. The first report drawn up by the authorities is dated May 14, 2023. “It took them three days to stop the felling, which allowed many trees to be taken down. And when they left, they left everything there,” Garrote laments over the phone, condemning the fact that what began as a task to clear the land has left it with more combustible material on the eve of the summer period.

Time has proved the neighbours right. Aedas not only removed the diseased and dangerous trees as the Town Hall had asked it to do, but it also cut down 82 trees in perfect condition, as confirmed by municipal technicians. These trees were cut unnecessarily and the company was fined 115,999 euros, plus compensation of 147,263 euros. PSOE councillor Ángel González Bascuñana accuses the real estate company of acting in “bad faith”: “It is laughing at the Town Hall and breaking the law, and this is causing institutional weakening. We are asking for greater vigilance on the part of the Town Hall, so that it is not the neighbours who have to be aware of whether trees are being cut down, and that control and sanction measures are stepped up.”

The fine imposed on Thursday does not seem to satisfy either the residents of Montegancedo or the opposition. Susana Bennike, a native of Denmark and registered in Pozuelo, has described Thursday’s plenary session as “a real disgrace”: “[La multa] It is a ridiculous amount that does not even tickle their fancy.” Along the same lines, Bascuñana believes that “it should have been much more. With 70,000 euros they will solve the fine issue because they are given the possibility of two 20% discounts for prompt payment and, if they renounce appealing the fine, for acknowledging responsibility.”

The PSOE has taken out the calculator to determine that, under these sanctioning parameters, the felling of the 5,000 trees that make up Montegancedo “would entail a fine equivalent to 0.5% of what the real estate companies will invoice when they sell the houses, which is absolutely scandalous,” in the words of Bascuñana. Adeas Homes has refused to answer questions from this newspaper about the fine received and the possibility of appealing it. The other real estate company that is part of the urban development project, Pryconsa, had also been accused of environmental crimes, but the company demonstrated that the trees cut were not part of the land owned by it, so the City Council accepted its allegations and avoided the sanction.

The sanctioning file to which EL PAÍS has had access states: “The damage caused by the felling is irreparable, as it is not possible to replace the destroyed trees with others of similar characteristics.” The crime has been defined in the document as “very serious”, according to Law 8/2005 on the Protection and Promotion of Urban Trees in the Community of Madrid.

The construction of the Montegancedo housing estate, which will transform 70 hectares of forest into a luxury neighbourhood of 1,050 homes, means the arrival of nearly 4,000 residents to an area where fewer than 2,000 currently live. This work initially involves the felling of a thousand trees just for the construction of the roads, plus the subsequent demolition that will be necessary to raise the blocks of up to four floors.

All this in an area inhabited by more than one hundred animal species, 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 report also confirms the presence of “numerous specimens” of holm oaks and stone pines “over one hundred years old and some close to two hundred years old”, as well as rock roses, brooms, poppies and wild rose bushes.

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