Mason Jones (Reporter)
A HOTEL development – dubbed the Algarrobico of Estepona – has received a ‘stop order’ for breaching building requirements.
The Santa Marta hotel, situated within a quiet residential area in Estepona, has received a backlash from locals due to its size and proximity to the beach.
Now, following a damning report by the public prosecutor, the developers have been sent a partial stop order.
As revealed by the Olive Press in March, the seven-storey project dwarfs the previous Hotel Santa Marta, a low-rise bungalow resort which was surrounded by several hundred trees.
Some local residents, including one expat pensioner who can touch the mammoth hotel from her bedroom window, claim it has been built without the proper licences.
Now Malaga’s public prosecutor (fiscal) has finally agreed and ordered Estepona Town Hall to issue a stop order on the construction.
The EU is already investigating the development which residents of the Benamara urbanisation say has forced them to ‘live on a building site for the last four years’.
Environmental groups insist that the project violates the 1988 Coastal Law which dictates that any area within 100 metres of the beach is public and not suitable for private development.
The new hotel ends approximately 20 metres from the beach, replacing what was once a small single-storey chiringuito.
What is a “partial stop order”? Does it mean the work will progress at an even slower rate? This lump will sit there till kingdom come. Just like Algarrobico. Hands will be sat on, court orders will be ignored. Another wart will fester on the poor old Costa Del Sol.
Another planning mess by the Junta.
I spent quite a few days there, it was a lovely old fashioned place with a great pool and good food. Big rooms and cheap prices. Another piece of “The old Costa” lost. Very sad.
The Hotel is not 20 meters from the beach, it is an old tree if you like the measserment with the tide in or out??
It is time that new first class hotels are build – the Costa needs that more then anybody else.
So stop to complain think and speak possitive on top of that
everybody in this region needs this development.
helmut