Gemelos 28 Updates
Gemelos 28 Updates. This page will be continually updated with news about the Gemelos 28 apartment buildings and the proposed demolition
13th August 2023 - The Saga continues. Benidorm asks to delay the demolition of its two towers that were originally constructed with four to six metres of their base, occupying public protected land.
Benidorm City Council requests that an environmental report be prepared to decide whether the demolition has more pros than cons, one being that the the demolition could seriously affect the coast, due to the "inevitable fall of rubble, with possible contamination of the waters by dust and other substances,"
The money set aside by the Valencian government to compensate owners who bought in good faith, plus the complicated demolition costs is said to be around 100 million euros.
26th August Updates 2022 - Benidorm City Council request that the Gemelos 28 towers are not demolished, due to high costs and environmental consequences.
The City Council of Benidorm will go to "all instances that proceed" to achieve the recognition of "public utility" and "municipal interest" for the non-demolition of Gemelos 28. the Board of Spokespersons has agreed to bring a motion to that effect to the next plenary session.
The proposal will be based on a report by the municipal secretary, which shows, among other aspects, the high cost of demolition around 130 million euros, and the fact that once the building has been demolished it can be re-lifted just seven metres further from the coastline.
The "high" cost of removing the blocks. "The price to be borne does not justify the public usefulness of the execution of the judgment, rather the contrary," the report states, which calls the cost "absolutely excessive and disproportionate to the objective to be achieved."
In that sense, it adds that this expenditure "will become useless" in that "the plot can be rebuilt and the only thing achieved is to delay a few meters the facade built of the coast in that part of the urban land".
As if that were not enough, the clerk collects that "not a single square meter of soil will become public" since servitude does not imply a change in ownership.
The report also highlights the negative image that people would take of this "embarrassing" takedown due to the cost, conditions and effects of demolition for the Sustainable Development Goals, climate change and CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
There are more arguments as it is emphasized that it would be "very difficult for society at large to understand" to spend more than 100 million demolishing a building "which can be built a few meters further back", as well as insisting on the "risks of landfills into the sea".
It is further considered that the enforcement of the judgment ordering the takedown rather than benefiting the general interest "would end up harming and injurying that interest".
Furthermore, the report sets out some proposals justifying non-demolition and points to some alternatives for environmental improvement of the coastline and citizen use.
These include the "protection and arrangement" of the edges of the seafront, "increasing the safety of the area's neighbors and users", the construction of a pedestrian walkway "from which you can access the sea" and, finally, "turning the entire ground floor into a public space landscaped as a playful and tourist lookout".
Similarly, the report proposes to the plenary that the City Council "suspend" any procedure that affects the demolition of the blocks and that it be declared that non-demolition "is a matter of municipal interest and public utility" both by "the realization of the project of extension of the Paseo de Levante" and for the "inefficiency and inefficiency" of demolition.
The Supreme Court's 2012 ruling ordered the demolition of the properties. However, in view of the difficulty of its implementation, the parties decided to go to the Court of Arbitration and Mediation of Valencia at the end of 2019.
That process was completed last July without reaching any agreement. The city clerk's report argues as one of the cases the "ultra-orthodox legal position" of the Court.
That said, the clerk sets out some reasons for the declaration of public utility not to demolish Twins 28. First, he cites that the demolition will not impede "the urban possibility of re-building the plot".
It also affects the impact that the plot is outside the scope of Serra Gelada's Natural Resources Management Plan (PORN) and its coastal area.
Please note the above has been translated from Spanish to English, read the original article here in DiarioInformation
Gemelos 28 Updates 1st August
Government and opposition will unite to find a way to prevent the demolition of the two towers after the attempted agreement failed.
They argue that the demolition would entail two costs: the amount that would cost to bring them down and how it would affect the environment in which it is located
The City Council "will fight to prevent the demolition",
31st July
Mediation to avoid the demolition of Benidorm's Punta Llisera towers closes without agreement
This controversial building which is positioned just a few meters from the sea above the Punta Llisera de Benidorm, could today be one step closer to its demolition. The Gemelos 28 complex has 22 floors and a total of 168 homes.
The Court of Mediation and Arbitration of the Chamber of Valencia has closed the mediation procedure transferred at the beginning of the year by the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community without reaching an agreement between the parties, which would practically exhaust the last way to stop the demolition of the two towers.
They have been out of order since 2012, when the Supreme Court ratified a previous ruling of the TSJ that annulled the license granted by the Generalitat to Edificaciones Calpe in 2005 for invading the area of maritime-terrestrial public domain.
The execution of that judgment, motivated by the demand of a private citizen who has fought against the 'colossus', has been pending ever since. In all this time, the builder, some owners and the Generalitat itself, on which the entire cost of the process falls, have sued themselves in search of the courts declaring the judgment 'unenputable'. The last time, through this mediation process, in which the Benidorm City Council was also personified as an interested party, and which is now closed without reaching an agreement.
What will happen from now?
Sources who known about the process explained yesterday that, with the closure of this chapter, there are hardly any legal loopholes left to hold on to. The Generalitat Valenciana must demolish the two towers and compensate the owners with the money they paid for each of the houses, plus 20%, as the Court once collected. All this could entail a much more than one hundred million euros for public coffers.
The Consell budgeted only in compensation for the owners of the houses a consignment of 70,777,302.28 euros. To this we would have to add the cost of the demolition of these two buildings, a very complicated process that would practically force the work to be carried out manually, due to its proximity to the sea and the environmental damage that it could produce in the place where it is located, on the edge of the Natural Park of the Serra Gelada.
Both the autonomous and local authorities cling to this possible environmental condition, especially on the marine environment, as a spearhead to argue that the demolition should be left without execution. And they also argue that, once the complex is demolished, the owner of the land, the terra Terras de l'Horta, could re-build a similar building a few meters further back, so they consider that the very high investment that will have to be made would be in vain.
Consensus PP seeks settlement against demolition
The government of Benidorm, of the PP, has asked the two opposition groups – PSOE and Cs – for a unanimous stance to defend the damage that the demolition of the Gemelos 28 complex could bring. This was requested yesterday by the mayor of the city, Toni Pérez, at a meeting of the board of spokespersons at which the issue was addressed. The position of the local executive points not only to environmental damage, but also to the "economic hole" that this action would entail for the Generalitat at a time as delicate as the current one.
Please note this story has been translated from Spanish to English so some detail may be lost in translation, read the original here in Diarioinformacion
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