City Council ordered to pay 1.2 million euros for irregularities in an urban development agreement signed during the PSOE government’s term in office

The agreement, signed in 2005, was never executed as it contravened the Andalusian town planning law in force and the socialists used the amounts paid by the company to pay current expenses.

The Estepona Town Hall will have to pay 1.2 million euros, plus interest imposed by a court ruling of the High Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) arising from an irregular urban development agreement signed during the socialist municipal government stage in the municipal Corporation.

Specifically, it is the agreement signed in 2005 with a company for the development of the farm called ‘Cortijo la Teja’. This agreement, which required a modification of the General Urban Development Plan (PGOU) of the municipality, was never developed as it contravened the town planning law in force. The amounts contributed by the developer, which amounted to 1,225,242.99 euros, in exchange for the urban developments, were used by the then socialist government, as demonstrated in court rulings, for the payment of current expenses, mainly the payment of the salaries of municipal employees, thus violating the then Law of Urban Planning of Andalusia (LOUA).

The company began to claim in 2017 from the Estepona City Council the declaration of nullity of the urban development agreement signed with the Estepona City Council on December 5, 2005, as well as of the agreement adopted by the Plenary of the Estepona City Council in its session of December 20, 2005, by which the same was approved. At the same time, the full restitution of the amounts contributed at the time plus the legal interest is demanded, as it is understood that the Socialist Corporation had incurred in a serious breach of the terms of the agreement.

The Spatial Plan of Andalusia, approved by decree dated November 28, 2006, already prevented, as stated in the judgment that now condemns the City of Estepona, “an increase of land for development greater than 40% of existing urban land, a limitation that the City of Estepona exceeded” in that year “to have entered a plurality of urban development agreements. However, and although this already prevented the development of the agreement in Finca La Teja, the socialist Corporation never resolved the agreement or returned the amounts claimed by the companies.

The bad management of the socialist stage in the municipal government of Estepona continues to burden the municipal coffers with irregular urban development agreements for which the City Council is being sentenced to pay millions of dollars. It should be recalled that upon arrival to government in 2011, the current executive headed by Mayor José María García Urbano, found a debt that totaled 304 million euros and had to create a fund

for the provision of unfavorable judgments to the number of processes for non-payments in which the Consistory was immersed. Of these, more than 30 million corresponded to unpaid invoices to suppliers.

In the case of the urban development agreements signed by the PSOE mayors that were never executed, the amounts contributed by the companies were destined to the payment of current expenses, in years when the Consistory could not even pay the salaries of the workers of the City Council and not even the toilet paper in the municipal nurseries. The government team of García Urbano has been facing the payment of that debt, practically paid in full, and the payments that the companies harmed by those urban development agreements, now claim to the City Council.