Friday, November 10, 2023, 6:14 p.m.
Since the old Civil Guard barracks was acquired by the Oriola construction company Travensa, it has never dared to touch the building, but now it seems that there would be intentions. As stated by the PSOE in the extraordinary plenary session this Friday, an alleged agreement between the developer and the City Council would corroborate this. The agreement, always according to the version of the socialists, would mean lifting the protection that weighs on this property, granted by the former popular mayor, Pedro Hernández Mateo. The councilor tried unsuccessfully to acquire this building on the first line in front of Vista Alegre promenade when the State put it up for auction at the beginning of this century, but finally the company took the lead, giving rise to one of the longest-running litigations. in the Town Hall.
This Friday’s Plenary Session voted to expand with remainders the budgeted credits to, among other concepts, renew the turf of the Nelson Mandela stadium, the project of the new Museum of the Sea and Salt, finish the new La Siesta park, give a subsidy to Alpe or renew the furniture and air conditioning of municipal buildings. However, the group headed by Bárbara Soler decided to focus the debate on the item approved with the votes in favor of the PP and Vox to provide 211,000 euros for the acquisition of land occupied by the City Council next to the old barracks and later included in the project. construction of the new university headquarters and the municipal water company, Agamed.
The justification for this item was that the acquisition of this lot cannot be delayed until 2024 due to the imminent compliance with the Travensa ruling on the lot located on Concepción Street. The ruling to which it refers is from 2021, issued by the Contentious-Administrative Court of Elche, and obliges the City Council to restore and compensate the construction company for some meters invaded by the Consistory, in this case, to work on the also adjacent room of Vista Alegre exhibitions. Soler explained that, according to his criteria, the land in Travensa that is intended to be purchased with the money approved today is not the one affected by the ruling.
It is here where Soler has brought up the aforementioned document which, according to her own admission, appears in the file in Word format and unsigned. The content, according to the PSOE, is to lift the protection that weighs on the barracks through a modification of the General Plan so that Travensa can build a hotel there on the front line in exchange for the City Council buying the land it needs to complete the project. the university headquarters.
The Councilor for the Treasury, Domingo Paredes, has removed all credibility from the alleged agreement, since, he stated, “the City Council works with PDF documents signed by councilors or officials and a Word document that no one signs certifies that this document was not executed in “No moment and that what you have done has been to put together a series of urban planning nonsense trying to create an intervention that seemed more typical of a Fourth Millennium program.
The government team recalls that the General Plan allows raising four floors above the existing ones in the barracks and two extra if it is a four or more star hotel.
Municipal sources deny to this newspaper that the government team’s intention is to unprotect the building. They assure that the General Plan of Torrevieja already contemplates, without removing the current protection, that four more heights be raised above the existing ones, as long as the original aesthetics are reproduced in the floors that rise above. «Travensa or anyone else can build all the floors there that the Plan allows, even if it is in a protected building. This does not require any modification of the plan, nor any discontinuation,” they emphasize.
The compatible uses in this space, they explain, are residential and hotel. In this sense, there is a reservation in the plan, modification 78, which would allow the developer to raise two extra floors above those already permitted. For this to be granted, the hotel to be built should be four or more stars.
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The socialist spokesperson, however, observes hidden interests and warned that, in her opinion, what was approved this Friday may constitute a crime of embezzlement of public funds because the justification of the credit, she insisted on several occasions, “is false” and “It has nothing to do with the sentence referred to.” She even stated that this operation “is already on the table of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency.” Nor, says Soler, has he located any contract or pre-contract for the purchase of the land.
38 square meters
The socialists also assure that, as they have been able to verify through orthophotos, the land that they want to buy from Travensa has been fenced and incorporated into the rest of the municipal property plot since it became public property in Torrevieja. In this sense, he defended that if the plot has remained like this for more than 20 years and Travensa has never requested the City Council to return those 38.09 meters invaded, it can be argued before a judge that it is already municipal property.
The Treasury councilor argued that he included this justification in the sentence because, he says, it sets the price per square meter at which those square meters are valued. Likewise, he assured that, according to the technical reports, “the acquisition of a plot for its mere occupation requires more than 30 years” and that the Property Registry says that those meters are currently Travensa and that there “there are actions of that society.
A few weeks ago the City Council reactivated the works on the university headquarters with the demolition of the rear of the Vista Alegre room. The work involves changing the location of the toilets, since the area to be demolished will be occupied to make the main access to the new public building through Concepción Street. Likewise, the City Council explained to this newspaper that it was in talks with Travensa to “make the purchase effective” of the missing land, since, they explained, the project requires that the perimeter of the building be quadrangular.
Regarding hotel uses, the mayor, Eduardo Dolón, has always expressed himself in favor of increasing an offer that is clearly scarce. In the councilor’s opinion, more squares would help the city attract more major sporting events and boost conference tourism. With only one large hotel in the center of the urban area, without going any further, projects with the Baraka Group in Doña Sinforosa have been required to have 50% hotel utilization. But this is by no means the only project in the pipeline.
This newspaper has contacted the developer to confirm its alleged intentions regarding the old Civil Guard barracks and has declined to make any statements.
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