The urban planning inheritance of the PSOE in the City Council prevents the construction of more than 1,500 subsidized housing units.

The PSOE approved in an accelerated manner between 2005 and 2007 a total of 13 partial urban development plans without the developers having to make the VPO reserves established by the Urban Development Law of Andalusia (LOUA). The current government team is legally obliged to continue processing these partial plans that are still pending development.

The government team of the City Council of Estepona today regretted that the city has lost the opportunity to build more than 1,500 subsidized housing (VPO) by the disastrous urban management carried out by the PSOE in the city during the years 2005 and 2007.

During the regular plenary session held today, the deputy mayor of the area of Development, Infrastructure and Tourism (FIT), Ana Velasco, explained that the socialist leaders approved “in record time” during his government a series of partial plans of urbanism that freed the developers to reserve the land established for VPO the Law of Urban Planning of Andalusia (LOUA).

Velasco explained that during the socialist period at the head of the Consistory a total of 13 partial plans were initially approved so that the private sector could build 5,089 homes in different sectors of residential land. “If the regional legislation had been applied, the City Council should have required these developers to reserve land in their urban development projects for a total of 1,527 subsidized housing units. However, the socialist leaders preferred to expedite the approval process to builders taking advantage of a transitional law during those years (2005-2007) so that finally did not have to allocate 30 percent of their promotions to VPO, as required by the LOUA,” said the head of the FIT area.

Ana Velasco explained that these decisions of the socialist government are now “another urban development burden” for the city, because all these partial plans must continue to be processed by law by the City Council for its development. “It is yet another problem that we inherited from the socialist era, since the current legislation obliges us to continue promoting those urban plans that obviated the construction of social housing in their developments,” said the councilor of the FIT area.

In this regard, Ana Velasco added that the current corporation has not approved any partial urban plan on residential land, but will comply with the reserve of 30 percent of VPO in future promotions that request to be developed.

On the other hand, he recalled that the City Council allocated a municipal plot for the construction of 110 VPO in the sector of Juan Benitez to promote access to housing for people who need it and is currently working on another development in the sector of Camino de Cortes.

In addition, the Estepona City Council initiated in March a series of measures aimed at streamlining VPO projects. One of them contemplates allocating plots of land that are currently classified as public facilities in the current General Urban Development Plan (PGOU) to the construction of subsidized rental housing.

The City Council takes as a basis the Decree-Law 1/2025 of February 24 on urgent housing measures, approved by the Junta de Andalucía, which provides for the possibility of building public rental housing on plots of equipment, without the need to modify the planning instruments when these soils have no specific use or are qualified with the generic use of public and social interest, i.e., they are not reserved for educational or health use.