Benidorm City Council will appeal the ruling of the TSJ on the compensation for the APR7 of Serra Gelada

Benidorm City Council will present an appeal against the ruling handed down on May 23 by the First Section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community that condemns the City Council to pay 283,055,750.12 euros, plus the corresponding legal interest, to the companies Murcia Puchades Expansión SL and Urban Villajoyosa 2000 SL in compensation for the urban development uses of their property included in the APR-7 sector of Serra Gelada. This was announced this Thursday by the mayor of the city, Toni Pérez, who held a Board of Spokespersons to inform the groups of the Municipal Corporation and, subsequently, appeared to announce this ruling, which is not final and against which still has appeal.

Toni Pérez has advanced that, first of all, the municipal legal services are going to ask the TSJ for clarification of the ruling, for which there are two business days starting today when it has been notified for legal purposes. The next step will be the filing of an appeal, with the clear and sole objective of "continuing to defend the general interest as we have done since this team arrived at the local government in 2015 about this matter", as highlighted in the first mayor

This judicial ruling responds to the appeal presented by both companies against the ruling of the Contentious Administrative Court number 3 of Alicante of February 24, 2022, which ruled in favour of the City Council by declaring null the urban planning agreements signed in 2003, 2010 and 2013. Despite rejecting the 283 million euros claimed by the appellant companies based on these agreements, the same ruling of the Contentious Administrative Court number 3 of Alicante maintained, however, that these companies had the right to receive little more than 636,116.27 euros for the 121,992.50 square meters that were transferred in 2004 to the town of Benidorm, an amount that, as the first mayor highlighted today, “was assumed – by the City Council – and allocated since it became known " Of the same.

In his appearance, the mayor wanted to send “a message of tranquillity” to the citizens. “Here there is a very responsible, very effective government that works for defending the general interest of the people of Benidorm, as we are going to continue doing, always with the utmost respect for Justice,” he said. Likewise, he recalled that "until now, all the rulings and legal pronouncements had been on the path of agreeing with the position that the City Council has maintained" and he has expressed his "conviction that this has no place for politics, but for management, to defend the Benidorm model and continue committed to protecting our territory and also our planet.”

For this reason, Toni Pérez has recognized that the sentence, signed by three judges of the TSJ, “represents a clear setback” for the municipality both legally and economically, “but we are going to work to defend and recover the reason that Until now they had always given us the courts.”

Regarding the economic scope of the ruling, Pérez has highlighted that this compensation, plus his legal interests, would correspond “practically to three complete municipal budgets” and has confessed “not knowing of any other ruling that could inflict such a blow on a city council” despite of being an issue “that does not only affect the municipal level.” "We are talking about a land that is part of a Natural Park and that, by preventing construction, we offer as a green and protected space to so many millions of people who come here to be happy", which is why he has considered that  "It should be a matter of State, like many administrations that acquire a lot of land in many places to do things."

Finally, the first mayor has appealed to “responsibility” and assured that the Popular Party government will continue “firm in defending a model such as the Benidorm model, which gives so much satisfaction to those who "we live, to those who live around us and to those who visit us."

Previous pronouncements

The ruling handed down by the First Section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Valencian Superior Court of Justice agrees with two land owners in APR7 who appealed the ruling issued in 2022 by the Contentious-Administrative Court number 3 of Alicante, which ruled in favour of this City Council by declaring null the urban planning agreements signed in the years 2003, 2010 and 2013.

Despite rejecting the 283 million euros claimed by the appellant companies based on these agreements, the same ruling of the Contentious Administrative Court number 3 of Alicante of February 24, 2022, nevertheless maintained that these companies had the right to receive just over 600,000 euros for the 121,992.50 square meters that they effectively transferred in 2004 to the town of Benidorm.

Because of this ruling in the first instance, which took into consideration the arguments defended by the municipal technicians, the City Council began the procedure to declare the nullity of these agreements and thus put an end to this litigation. A position that was endorsed by the Consell Jurídic Consultiu in a binding opinion, which considered that these agreements were effectively void for various reasons.