twyntub

With housing stock alledgedly enough to last the next ten years lying empty, the unfairness of land grab, the seemingly unstoppable illegal builds, and the double-jeopardy of apprently "legal" constructions being summarily demolished through political whim, it's easy to see why Spain continues to hit the British press for all the wrong reasons.

Local Mayors and politicians have stood accused of corruption and greed. "In a large number of documented cases town councils have concocted urban development plans less because of their real requirements related to population growth and tourism, more because of what often appears as their greed and avarice." - not my words, but the words of the European Parliament Petitions Committee researching corruption in the Spanish property market last year.

Hondón de las Nieves has not been immune to these problems. Its single urbanisation, Mi Casa Family or Oasis literally swamps the town's limited resources of electricity and water - making life difficult for residents therein as well as in the campo nearby. Many have moved in to find an unfinished development and electricity in such short supply that the streetlights remain unlit.

Sensitive to all of these issues, the Town Hall has responded by heavily revising its urban plan. The Mayor has realised that the area is critically short of high value properties for wealthy foreign speculators and investors. Unaffordable homes for the burgeoning investment market.

The highlights of the plan

• The current number of properties in the area will grow from 1,000 to 11,500
• The population will grow from under 3,000 at present to 20,000
• Land will be expropriated at knock down prices from land owners and home owners throughout the valley in order to provide for parks, bus stations, health centres, new roads and services.
• Anyone that might benefit from said facilities will be expected to contribute either money, or land or both.

Some specifics

• The Mi Casa / Oasis urbanisation will be extended and doubled in size. Properties nearby will be swallowed up.
• Another, much larger, urbanisation will be built over the road towards La Solana I/II
• Urban aspects of La Canalosa and El Rebalso will also double in size
• Hondón de las Nieves town will grow to almost six times its current size.

The losers
It's easy to find the losers. In the end we all lose, but initially it's the land owners. With a quick wave of the Mayor's magic wand, rustic land worth perhaps €70-90,000 per hectare (10,000 square metres) can be purchased under LRAU / LUV for €21-25,000 - that's just €2.50 per square meter. Friends are going to lose their gardens and even their homes. Parents and Teachers alike will lose land and property handed down through generations and intended for their children and grandchildren. One has just discovered that his garden will become the local bus station.

Sooner or later, with 17,000 new residents, the very essence of the Town that we chose to live in will be destroyed.

The winners
Strangely enough, it's also easy to find the winners. That wave of the Mayor's wand which brought misery and upset now means our hectare of land is 'urbanised', and even allowing 40% for new services and open spaces, our €25,000 piece of land becomes worth about €1.2 million by the time it's sold on to the likes of you and I. Now, who was it who said there was no money to be made in Spanish property these days?

All in all this is a property deal worth well in excess of 2 billion euros. Anyone need three guesses as to where some of that ends up?!

What can be done
We're still finding out more information. The 45 day public consultation period started on February 14th, with a blaze of publicity... NOT! I'm attending a Q&A session with the opposition party on Friday (and having to learn Spanish fast). As soon as I find out more, I'll let you all know, but suffice to say it WILL be fought on many fronts.

Sitting in the Town Hall today and looking at over 600 pages of documents and 30-40 A0 street plans where EVERY existing house is clearly visible underneath the new plans, you realise you cannot just stand by and watch this train crash happen.

So what do you think the Town Planner's response was when one of our party said "But that's so-and-so's house..."?




..."It's the law"

Attached: GIF file showing the urban plans, dark pink shows current urbanised areas, light pink the proposed new urbanisations.

Further information can be obtained by visiting the Ayuntamiento between 11am and 1pm, or by visiting the web site:

http://www.ayto-hondondelasnieves.es...50E573D306.htm

linda Coyle

Twyntub - this is terrible, what a shame for the people who already live there,probably,like everyone else on Oasis,we thought "what a lovely quiet place to move to", if only we knew before buying. You will, i know, keep the forum updated - what would we do without you?

Lionda

I for one would be pulling out if I was intending to purchase on either of these developments. This is just an example of what is happening throughout Spain and the urbanisation we were buying on (but thankfully have pulled out of) is just another example of over development and thoughtless, greedy planning laws.

Go get 'em TT :curse:

big wheels

"The current number of properties in the area will grow from 1,000 to 11,500"

sounds like a nightmare.

jdr

But who is going to buy them ?
There are probably at least that many in Benalmadena that have been for sale for a couple of years and they are still building more ?

Lionda

Ridiculous isn't it - on the urb in Castalla there are properties which have never been lived in and been up for sale - with no viewers in most cases - for 3 or 4 years. Also there are new apartment blocks being built in the town - who is going to live in them

Sorry TT, another development but similar situation

twyntub

Don't apologise - it's an important point. In Hondon de las Nieves town, there is a new appartment block that's been built next to the school. Massive disruption caused when they put in the water / electricity supplies - were digging up the roads for weeks. There was even rumours of a Mercadona opening up underneath.

Now it's finished it's all boarded up. Apparently, they can't sell them for love nor money.

Lionda

We heard yesterday that at least one of the apartment blocks in the town has been bought by Russians for renting out

GrapeEater

Don't like the sound of this. I have very mixed feelings about it. If I knew this now I probably would have not bothered with Hondon at all.
But I cannot see them building or selling them any time soon - where is the demand and money - there are thousands of empty apartments / villas across the whole of Costa Blanca.

Plans !!!! That's all they are at the mo'. It'll be years before any of this takes shape and the next elected council may change things again. The Mi Casa Urb has been going for 6 years and still not finished 450 houses - So in the short term I am enjoying the place but you made me think that we should get more politically aware before they steam-roller over us... After all they'll want our money and vote !!!

twyntub

Yes, they are plans. But we're not talking about a memo from the Mayor saying "Hey, I've got an idea, lets build a few houses" - this is thousands of man hours worth of work that's gone into all of this.

Over 600 pages of justification documents, hundreds of AutoCAD drawings detailing every single bit of the Hondon valley like you wouldn't believe. Every house, every street, almost down to the bricks in the pavements. They show exactly which houses must lose land and how much, where everything is going to go. Pages and pages of Excel workbooks breaking down every parcel of land to a fraction of a square metre.

So make no mistake... the Mayor and the Town Hall are damn serious about making this happen

bchapl

Thanks, Twyntub, for the information - we know you will keep us all informed.
My husband and I completed on our house in October and we bought it because it has 10,000sq mtrs.land for our horses (it's a new build, directly opposite Casa Familia urbanisation). We were thinking that it's a nice, quiet area for us to move to when we retire (or earlier - my OH hasn't been all that well recently, but, for the moment, we use it as a holiday home). But we knew something was afoot when we were over last week as we heard some people in Bar Central talking about plans to build what they referred to as a 'city'. Also, we noticed that when we now look out of our first floor bedroom, what had earlier looked to be just a small(ish) urbanisation has now been extended half way up the mountainside directly opposite our house, let alone to the left of our house, where it now seems to go on for miles! We didn't notice all this before, but then perhaps estate agents are careful not to point out these things!!!!???? We did comment to our estate agent that there seemed to be a lot of building going on and he did state that it was an 'area of growth', and, since we need to make a living when we come over, we weren't unduly worried at the time, thinking that this would help raise employment opportunities, but this latest plan is just plain ridiculous! Most of these houses will remain empty, I would guess. We would never have bought the house in the first place if we had known about these plans (and, yes, we did all the requisite searches, but there was no mention of this huge development).
I'd be interested to know about plans for land grab. We're going to be really p....d off (as are countless others) if we have paid a lot of money for a piece of land, only to lose it to developers!
Do, please, keep us all informed of any developments and thanks in advance for this.
The best of luck to all who have bought in Hondon.
Best,
bchapl:curse:

twyntub

If only it were as simple as whether or not they can sell the properties! Spanish property development - the industry, the people, the rules - all seem to be back to front!

I have attached a zoomed-in shot of the land opposite Mi Casa. The light pink is the proposed new development - which includes a new road to the new urbanisation from the CV-845 extending through the top of the map.

Hopefully your property will be somewhere in the sea of biege between the roundabout and El Rebalso.

I strongly urge you - and indeed any member who may be affected - to visit the Town Hall to check this out.

Bri and Katee

Doesn't the local council have a sizeable number of ex-pats of various nationalities on it twyntub? seems to me that you need to campaign vigourously amongst all expats and have them vote a council of their own, that will overturn the plans into office.

GrapeEater

Yes of course their serious - and so they should be with tax-payers money !!! And I can see there's been a load of work done here. But these are 25 year plans that have to be submitted to the Valenciana Government for approval and not all (if any) will go through + ones that do go through may never be fulfilled.

You're right to be concerned to a degree and spread the word. Yes, we should have a say and take a big interest in this. In an ideal world my opinion is retain the Spanish rural charm we came for.

But some of these docs have been around for 3/4 years + any village or town has to look to the future (Spain, UK, Timbuktoo). We all have different agendas - Hondon valley needs improvement and a long-term plan, and progress is never going to come from just the locals money, there's no jobs to attract the workers/keep the young here. Before 'us lot' arrived, Hondon was a dying village with no future.

Hondon is mainly attracting Retirees from what I can see which are a drain on resources, so the Council have to find ways to get income for services, etc.

Yes a public debate of how much should be done and where, is a right surely (the council should have made us more aware though) - but you're posts are quite negative and reactionary I feel. And other potential buyers to the area can be put off by this sort of thing. If you want Hondon to stay in the 19th century, fine, but that's just your take. Quaint villages can be made into quaint towns if done right - there will be casualties along the way (of course I hope it's not me) but progress has to happen and in my experience is inevitable most times. I'm not endorsing it, just being real I think. I don't want a load of Ex-Pat bars, chip-shops or English owned businesses taking over a quaint Spanish village personally.

But in 10 years time if the area has no investment / improved services and Hondon looks run down, you and I are gonna find a lot harder to sell our property. The Urb is already getting a battering from various quarters and people are finding it hard to sell homes because of sites like this where human nature (we are all guilty) is to complain/report problems/need answers or comment on negative rumours in the area. The Urb's commercial area will have no takers if there are little/no services or demand.

Hondon needs a prosperous future, Hondon can have that, of course we hope with the best intentions and in the right way.

GrapeEater

Not that I am aware of, most of us are "blissfully ignorant" of such matters. Of course that's wrong. The people I know are concerned for the future but are thwarted by the language barrier. The Council documentation is rarely produced in English. So we do need representation.

There have been a few attempts (mainly by the Dutch around here) to make inroads on the Council which has very little English/Dutch speaking members.
The Hondon Nieves Mayor comes over every so often (He speaks no English / Dutch) with interpretors which makes the meetings highly inefficient and poorly run sometimes but he is showing an interest. Not once to my knowledge has he suggested (as the voted party) told us of these plans directly.

It's very slowly getting better and has to with the 'foreigners' likely to equal/out-number the Spanish population. But this again is inherent to change - if you have and ex-pat community it is inevitable that they'll want to influence and directly/indirectly change the culture/environment of the area. Progress ???