The occupations of the coast like that of Feijóo’s villa

Luxury likes the exclusive use of the Spanish coast even though the law establishes that Access to the sea is “public and free” For everyone. Occupations and barriers without permits that prevent the passage to the maritime public domain – like those of the house of the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo – splash the coast. These invasions are lengthened even decades based on lawsuits many times by the economic muscle of the interested parties.

The house now in the name of Eva Cárdenas invades the public domain without permission since 2007 (when the concession expired). 18 years of occupation. That is why he has requested a new permit 30 years to count since 2007as stated in the notification of the start of the Pontevedra coast service that studies the petition. When the file is resolved, if it does not satisfy you, you may resort and, even later, go to the courts.

“When someone decides to exhaust the judicial route, go resource after appeal and take it to the last consequences, the case can be long,” says lawyer Inés Díez, who has cases of maritime-terrestrial public domain for Greenpeace. “For that you have to have an economic capacity to endure them, of course,” he concludes.

There are ways to prolong litigation. It can be used until the end or, if those affected are presented with different denominations, as has happened in the Algarrobico, the procedures “can be branched (…) and new procedures are initiated, you have to start over and that paralyzes the execution of a demolition sentence “

The lawyer adds that the procedures “can also be branched and complicated when affected with different denominations, as has happened with the hotel in El Algarrobico.” Thus, to the case major Resources for compensation, of patrimonial responsibility are joined … “new procedures begin, you have to start over and that paralyzes, for example, the execution of a demolition sentence.” Sometimes, the judicial skein is complicated so much, “that it is no longer known what you are talking about,” says Inés Díez.

The pool, the farm and the garita

An example that this skein works is that it has allowed a particular pool planted on public land of the coast to prolong its life more than 20 years in Mallorca. A famous pool because it belongs to the journalist Pedro Jota Ramírez. The Ministry of Environment of Jaume Matas (PP) authorized in 2001 the occupation of 350 m2 of maritime-terrestrial public domain for the pool. In 2005 the case broke out, but the final judgment of the Supreme Court did not reach until 2022. Then there was more battle in the courts on the execution of the ruling until, in March 2024, the judges said that the pool must be demolished yes or yes . It has passed almost a quarter of a century since the first permission (declared void) of occupation.

Also on the Balearic Island, the March family pleaded for decades to prevent arrival on foot to Cala Castell, that is, to the sea, by a path that crosses a large estate of its property called Ternelles in the Serra de la Tramuntana. In 2023, Justice determined that they have the obligation to allow the step to access the beach. The dynamics of high income that hinder access to public domain is repeated and reproduced. Last January, it was known that the owners of luxury houses on the island of Ibiza use a vigilante (with garita included) to try to prevent the public from approaching a protected cove. These are just some island examples of the Mediterranean.

Illegal hotel, beyond El Algarrobico

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, the Canary Islands have not escaped the occupation that privatizes de facto A beach and the long years of legal battle trying to reverse the situation. On the island of Lanzarote, for example, to be able to build the Hotel Papagayo Arena – which has more plants and more height than the City Council of Yaiza unified two plots which made a public road access to the beach disappear. In addition, in 2024, the General Directorate of the Coast and the Sea placed the hotel complex in the coastal protection zone. Therefore, there is now a legal battle with the objective that the hotel returns to the citizenship the section of access to the beach that snatched him with the work.

In this case, the Association The sun rises for everyone He has denounced the Government of the Canary Islands and the City of Yaiza for the inaction of the administrations. Regarding the latter, lawyer Díez explains that the Courts of Litigation (those that affect administrations) “have less capacity against those of other matters. When it comes to one individual against another particular, the Civil Court has more capacity to say that the badly done is demolished and the process of execution of sentence has more strength. ”

The point is that the contentious courts return the case to the administrations to execute. “And there we begin to get lost,” clarifies the lawyer, “no matter how much the Court insists, if the administration does not comply, it cannot be exercised as much coercion as with individuals.” The Papagayo obtained his illegal license in 1998 and the magistrates said he was out of the law in 2011.

The archipelagos with their coasts are conducive to these cases, but the entire coastline is the paid field. “The land maritime domain is especially conflictive, yes,” says Greenpeace’s lawyer. In Andalusia, the municipality of Marbella exemplifies that voracity. The city was weaving a particular relationship with its urbanism that maintains in illegality even to the Paseo Marítimo itself, which along four kilometers of the gold mile is entered in maritime-terrestrial public domain. Also a thousand buildings. More generally, the State has challenged a third of the 500 chiringuitos authorized since 2011 by the Board along the coast for, in its opinion, breach the regulations of occupation of the land maritime public domain.

Actually almost no section of coast is saved. In Xàbia (Alicante), the so-called Minister’s Chalet emerges, a house about 7,000 m2 of maritime-terrestrial public domain of the Francoist minister Mariano Navarro Rubio that the 1988 coast law considered that it was a land of all although it granted a period of 30 Years of occupation. However, before expiring the deadline in 2018, the government of Mariano Rajoy made a modification of that law by which the permits 75 years could be extended. The heirs of Navarro Rubio got that extension for their farm.

Social pressure so that it does not fall into oblivion

“If the administration understands the problem, it facilitates a lot,” contradicts Miquel Camps of the Balearic Group organization of Menorca (an association that has promoted several reversions of occupation). Costas saw it clear in occupations with parking in SA Mesquida and Binimel·là, in Menorca, “but then other situations are given – as in the beach of Son Bou – in which the domain invaded has been surrounded by important urbanizations, which They generate needs, economic interests of the businesses that move there and a multitude of visions. In these situations, the law is usually violated for a long time, ”he laments.

If the government’s announcement to expropriate part of the soils where the illegal hotel of El Algarrobico (Almería) has risen has brought to light the occupations of the coast, the attempt of the couple of Alberto Núñez Feijóo of expanding its exclusive use of the domain Public has put the focus on Galicia.

In that autonomous community there is still a private island in the Vigo estuary where the hundred homes of a luxury urbanization have eaten the maritime-terrestrial public domain. The island of Torralla has 45,000 m2 of private property and 24,400 of public domain.

After ten years of lawsuits, in 1997, the Supreme Court forced only access to O Vao beach on the island, but the transit servitude there (a slide of six meters mandatory that must “leave permanent expeditant for use for use pedestrian public and for surveillance and rescue vehicles ”) was pending. In those 6 meters “the construction of any installation is not authorized,” explains the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Recently, in November 2024, ecological transition commissioned the Drafting of the project for traffic recovery on the island of Toral. It still remains quite a while before that common heritage is recovered.

Lawyer Inés Díez reflects on how difficult it is to bring these cases to fruition “if there is no social pressure or a large organization that can keep the process in time. An individual can say ‘I desist’ ”. And he concludes: “If with an organization like Greenpeace pressing the carob is still there, imagine what would have been without that pressure.”