One of the few and last famous people we have left in Marbella are the Town Hall now hunting out of the community. Antonio Banderas, one of Spain’s most famous film actor and singer, who is a property owner in Los Monteros, Marbella, will have to pay a price for appearing as legal on the town’s new urban development plan (PGOU). The actor will have to give up the part of his garden that lies south of the swimming pool, a loss of a total of 1,243 square meters which also include a narrow strip adjoining the Siete Revueltas stream, because in the new PGOU plan reserves a strip to the south of the actor’s property for public parks and gardens.
The text of the new PGOU establishes that the plot houses a detached property built with a license granted against the valid planning regulations at the time. However his beautiful beach villa, La Gaviota, will be allowed to remain standing in exchange (community robbery) for part of the garden which will permit public access to the beach. Do you really think he or any wealthy people is going to stay in this stupid community, who one year give you building license and then a couple year later tell you it is illegal and want you to pay a penalty for that….
The legal situation of the property has already been through the courts. In April 2003 the Andalusian High Court (TSJA) ordered the demolition of part of the villa after the building license granted by Marbella Town Hall in 1995, when Jesús Gil y Gil was mayor, was annulled. Banderas, who acquired the property a coupe of years after the license had been awarded, appealed against the sentence but this was rejected in January 2008.
The Marbella Town Hall then applied to postpone this demolition order until the new PGOU has been finally approved, just as it has done with other cases in which the properties are likely to be legal once the new regulations come into force. Meanwhile the community of property owners on the Los Monteros estate has already announced that it would report a case of influence peddling if La Gaviota was finally allowed to remain standing.
Bandera’s neighbors plan to continue with this action, according to their legal representatives, as they consider that the compensation proposed by the PGOU only involves giving up part of the garden but not handing over an area of land equal to the size of the plot occupied by the house.
The ‘La Gaviota’ conflict gained another angle some six months ago. The criminal action against former mayor Julián Muñoz and other ex-GIL councilors for granting the license for the construction of the villa was shelved in December 2008 by a local judge. This problem is the same for many owners of Marbella apartments and Marbella villas in Marbella area.
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