SEVEN councillors who delayed a vote to cancel the building licence for the controversial Algarrobico hotel on an idyllic stretch of Spain’s southern coastline have been placed under investigation.
The Almeria Prosecutor’s Office has opened proceedings to determine whether the councillors – Jose Luis Amerigo, Angeles Carrillo, Felipe Cayuela, Francisco Capel, Vanesa Fuentes, Mariana Esteban and Isabel Hernandez – committed a crime when they postponed a vote on the licence at a Carboneras council meeting in June.
The vote, scheduled for June 17, was supposed to formally cancel the licence for the giant unfinished hotel, which has stood on the Cabo de Gata coast for more than 20 years.
Instead, five PSOE councillors and two non-affiliated councillors voted to delay the decision by five days, arguing that further reports were needed to establish whether the hotel’s developer would be entitled to compensation if the licence was revoked.
Environmental groups including Greenpeace and Salvemos Mojacar strongly objected, with the latter filing a complaint with prosecutors over what it slammed as an ‘inadmissible act of disobedience’ and alleged ‘manifest prevarication’.
Prosecutors have requested the minutes from the June council meeting and an explanation from Carboneras Town Hall as to why the vote was postponed.
The move also angered the local PSOE leadership, which announced disciplinary proceedings against its councillors and the temporary expulsion of those involved.
The Algarrobico hotel has become one of Spain’s most notorious symbols of excessive coastal development.
The vast 411-room complex was built on land which has since been declared non-developable, but efforts to demolish it have been tied up in legal battles for more than two decades.
The licence for the hotel was finally revoked in July after one of Andalucia’s highest courts ordered the council to do so.
However, the cancellation does not necessarily mean that the long-awaited demolition is imminent.
The developers can still appeal the cancellation of the licence, meaning more years of excruciating legal battles could lie ahead.
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