The TSJEx gives the Board eight months to detail how it will demolish Isla Valdecañas

The Superior Court of Justice of Extremadura (TSJEx) has issued an order in which it grants the Board eight months to prepare a plan for the total demolition of Marina Isla Valdecañas, which must even specify the expected date to vacate the houses of the residential complex and of leisure that, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling last month, must be demolished in its entirety and not only in part, as the TSJEx itself decreed two years ago. The Contentious-Administrative Chamber also orders to withdraw the compensation of 250,000 euros that the Board had to pay to the environmental associations that initiated this judicial process fifteen years ago (Ecologistas en Acción and Adenex).

The latter has no practical effect, because the two groups preferred not to collect those amounts, trusting that what finally happened would happen, that is, that the total demolition that they requested would be ordered and then there would be no damage to repair. The breach that justified the compensation was the impossibility of complying in all its terms (total demolition) the sentences of the TSJEx in 2011 and the Supreme Court in 2014, which agreed with the conservationists and declared the Project of Regional Interest (PIR) illegal. that allowed the resort to be built and ordered the replacement of the land it occupies to its previous situation at the beginning of the works.

What the Extremaduran TSJ does in the order dated this Wednesday is to respond to the order that the Supreme transferred to him in his sentence last month. In it, in addition to correcting him by ordering the total demolition instead of the partial demolition, he ordered him to clarify how this demolition of the complex in its entirety should be carried out. And the TSJEx now establishes that the first step that must be taken is for the Board to draw up “a plan or program that contemplates all the measures that total demolition entails.” «The period of eight months -continues the order- is set in attention to the complexity, variety and numerous measures to be adopted in the execution phase, which include from the way of executing the demolition, the phases, the adjudication procedures, the eviction of homes, hotels and other facilities, waste management and the necessary budget provisions.

Ten days to appoint a managing body

A part of this work has already been done, but not in the face of a total demolition, but rather a partial one whose administrative processing was quite advanced. In fact, it is possible that the regional government is worth a part of what has already been processed, and for this reason the TSJEx authorizes it “to maintain the previous plan in everything that is not incompatible with the ruling of the Supreme Court, and include the new phases of demolition”.

The order of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber grants the Autonomous Executive ten days to “designate a specific administrative body, with a head of the same, which will coordinate the execution work between the different administrative departments and which will be the body in charge of the execution in its relationship with the Chamber.

The plan “must include all the measures and needs for demolition, revegetation, awards, waste management, environmental impact statements, etc., that are necessary for the total demolition of the complex.” All of this must be reflected in a single document that specifies the measures to be carried out, their cost, the persons responsible for their execution, a schedule of actions and also the expected time to carry out all these steps. “It must include – the Extremaduran TSJ specifies – the provisions and measures to leave all homes, the hotel, the golf course and the facilities free of people and users.” Furthermore, the Chamber orders that the calendar “include when the eviction will take place.”

The two treatment plants are saved from the pickaxe

In preparing this program, the Board is obliged to consult the homeowners in the complex, the two environmental associations and the town councils of El Gordo and Berrocalejo on whose land the resort sits. The promoter is not mentioned. The possible doubts that may arise around this plan to tear down the complex will be resolved by the Contentious-Administrative Chamber itself, which will supervise the regional government’s plan and give it its approval.

The resolution saves the sewage treatment plants of the two towns from the pickaxe, considering the benefit they represent for the population and because the complainants have not requested that they be taken down.

In addition to these orders, the car performs three “last considerations”. The first is to remember that “the judgment of the Supreme Court is final, as there is no ordinary appeal against it.” The second clarifies that “the filing of incidents of annulment before the Supreme Court -as the Board and the owners have done- or appeals for amparo before the Constitutional Court -as both parties have already announced that they will do- does not suspend the execution of what agreed, without prejudice to the suspension that could be requested and obtained from the competent bodies. And the third recalls that since “it is the obligation of all parties to comply with the judgments on their own terms”, they are obliged “to facilitate the administration to carry out the enforcement measures.”