The plenary session rejects the appeal against the Ensanche Levante plan that provides for 1,600 residential homes and 600 protected homes

The plenary session of Benidorm City Council has put forward two motions on urban planning matters that will allow the development of the Ensanche Levante urban plan to continue according to the deadlines and procedures contemplated by the legislation. The first consists of ratifying the agreement of the Local Government Board to reject the request for suspension of the plenary agreement of March 27 by which such partial plan was approved, formulated by the spokespersons of the socialist municipal group. The second is to reject the appeal for reconsideration against the same plenary agreement formulated by the same opposition councillors. Both proposals have been debated together at the request of the socialist municipal group, although they have been voted separately and, in both cases, they have resulted in the majority vote of the plenary session: 17 in favour of the local government and the Vox councillor, in front to eight against the PSOE. 

The Councilor for Urban Planning, Lourdes Caselles, has relied on different reports written by municipal technicians where they consider that neither the suspension of the plan nor the appeal is possible. Caselles has defended that the Ensanche Levante plan will bring with it the creation of new housing in the city, many of them public, in addition to residential land, green areas and spaces for new infrastructure. Specifically, about the housing stock, the mayor explained that it includes 1,600 residential homes plus another 600 public protection homes and that it also includes 12 plots for tourist use, in which the owners must decide if they want to build. a hotel or an aparthotel. “In no other municipality in the Community will a plan be approved that promotes as much public housing as in this one,” said Caselles, who also defended that the development of Ensanche Levante “will bring many benefits to Benidorm” and that it will also “It will greatly improve the current state of that area.” 

In her presentation, the Town Planning councillor stated that the request for suspension of said agreement does not comply with any of the three assumptions established by the Administrative Procedure Law to endorse this procedure, such as that it would entail irreparable damage, that was null and void or that sufficient guarantee is presented so that said suspension does not cause damage to third parties or the general interest.

Next, he referred “point by point” to the four causes argued by the socialists in their appeals to request the suspension of such plan which have been rejected by the municipal technicians. And he has done it “so that no one has doubts that this partial plan is well approved,” he noted. Among them, he has stated that “Benidorm does not appear on the map defined by the Generalitat Valenciana” regarding the places where a Democratic Memory, Human Rights and Public Freedoms report is required, as there is “no place or itinerary” in it. that could be linked to this Democratic Memory”, as maintained by the town planning and legal technicians of the City Council. 

Likewise, Lourdes Caselles explained that the plan has been submitted to “all the reports that were issued by the Generalitat Valenciana”, which in all cases have ended up being favourable to the development of this urban sector. 

Another of the issues argued by the councillor is that Ensanche Levante "does not modify the 1990 General Plan, nor is the dominant use or the delimitation of the sector altered", since, as she recalled, "the PGOU already stated that such “land would be reserved for residential-hotel use.” Finally, he recalled that in the drafting of the plan, the standard use is established, as well as the weighting coefficients for buildability, coefficients that have been calculated “as established by the Valencian legislation” regarding land and that will be specified in the parcelling of the sector. 

In terms of Citizen Security, the municipal Corporation has unanimously put forward a proposal from the councillor of this department, Jesús Carrobles, to request the Generalitat Valenciana to begin the procedure for granting the Cross of Police Merit with Blue Badge to the agent. of the Benidorm Local Police Vicente Fuster Martínez. Among the reasons given for the request for said decoration, the history of this agent stands out for "standing out with notoriety and perseverance in the fulfilment of the duties of his position, constituting exemplary conduct", "having provided more than 10 years of active service in any local police force and have two public congratulations on an individual basis.” 

Another of the agreements that have gone ahead in the plenary session has been an extrajudicial approval of invoices worth 344,547.04 euros, raised to the plenary session by the Councilor for the Treasury, Ángela Zaragozí. The councillor has defended that it is a legal formula for paying suppliers for services performed and that have the approval of the economic area technicians. The proposal has gone ahead with votes in favour of the local government and the abstention of the two opposition groups. 

The plenary session has also unanimously declared void the plenary agreement adopted on May 31, 2021, that agreed to the continuity of the service contract for the l'Aigüera parking lot and after last December the plenary session also agreed to the start of an ex officio review for the declaration of nullity of that first agreement, recommended by the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency. The Mayor's proposal approved today was motivated by the opinion of the Legal Consultiu Council to declare that agreement of the year 2021 null.

The government spokesperson, Lourdes Caselles, has stated that given the opinion of the Consell Jurídic Consultiu “we bring to the plenary session to declare the nullity of that plenary agreement of May 2021 and to proceed with the liquidation of the contract with the company.” However, the councillor specified that the opinion establishes that "the payments made were well made and that the outstanding invoices had to be paid."

Caselles has clarified that the City Council "has always collaborated with the Anti-Fraud Agency" and has blamed the socialist group for "lying when it claims that the mayor refused to do so because Anti-Fraud had all the documentation at its disposal." In that sense, the spokesperson specified that the City Council secretary “ensured that the procedure was strictly followed.” And she has made it clear that on the same day that the Anti-Fraud recommendations arrived “the mayor requested a report from all the departments that had issued reports on the matter, to take them to the next plenary session.”

At this point, Caselles has indicated that the continuity of the contract was carried out "due to exceptional circumstances and with favourable reports from the technicians" and has criticized that the PSOE "creates a toxic opposition because they love being in the mud and damaging the image." of Benidorm”. “We vote for or against based on what the municipal technicians say. Now the Consell Jurídic Consultiu says that the nullity must be declared and that is what we are doing,” she concluded.

The session ended with the reporting of an order from Court Number 1 of Benidorm decreeing the provisional dismissal of some actions that were in the preliminary proceedings procedure.