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Marbella: the big clean up

Monday, March 15, 2010

Source: Catherine Deshayes

In the 15 years since Jesús Gil was elected mayor and tore up the existing planning regulations (PGOU) until the corruption was uncovered in 2006, some 18,000 properties had been built illegally in Marbella.

It is estimated that at least €250,000,000 had been laundered through real estate in and around Marbella. And if Interpol, Europol and the French and Spanish police hadn't been collaborating on a separate drug and money laundering investigation in 2003 the Marbella Town Hall might still have been issuing illegal licences to this day.

So even before the credit crunch began in 2008, Marbella was in big trouble. But after three years of tough negotiations, the town finally got its act together on January 29, 2010 when the new PGOU was approved by the regional government and it is no longer the basket case of the Spanish property market.

Today it is the first high profile coastal resort to return to legitimacy. Meanwhile, throughout the rest of Spain, similar examples of corrupt activity are still being unearthed and mayors and town councillors in handcuffs are seen being led out of town halls almost on a daily basis.

Marbella's new plan runs until 2018. Areas of green zone, where no construction of any kind is allowed, will be tripled to a total of 4.8 million square metres. Public and private investment is budgeted at €1,823 million and the maximum number of new properties allowed in the municipality during the next eight years is set at 26,477, of which 9,459 will be low-cost affordable housing, all of which is great news for prospective property purchasers.

Source: www.countrylife.co.uk