ENVIRONMENTALISTS have blasted Marbella town hall after it green-lit plans to build a monster luxury hotel on a stretch of protected coastline.
Green group Ecologistas Malaka has called on authorities to reverse the decision, which would see the five-storey hotel take up nearly 5,000 square metres on Marbella’s Golden Mile – where only two-storey buildings are currently permitted.
Campaigners say the project by developer MH Casa Properties is not ‘in the public interest’, while warning it could also pose a risk amid flooding fears and rising sea levels.
The group said in a statement on Facebook: “[This project] is a risk to our coastline.
“[Its] public interest has not been justified. Marbella already boasts 18,000 hotel beds, and more hotel developments are already being planned in the area.”
The new hotel is planned for a plot between glitzy Puerto Banus and Puente Romano, next to El Ancon beach.
It would replace an existing single-family home, known as Villa La Perla, with a luxury hotel reaching around 15 metres in height.
Marbella town hall first rubber-stamped the project in early July, with developers insisting it was fully compatible with the surrounding seafront.
But campaigners are now calling for the plans to be rejected, claiming the proposed building would be three times higher than the maximum currently permitted in the area.
Planning rules allow buildings of just ground floor plus one storey, while the hotel would rise to ground floor plus four, according to the project blueprint.
The group says the towering development would ‘break the human scale’ of the coastline and encroach into a protected coastal strip designed to act as a buffer between the sea and buildings.
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Ecologistas Malaka also claims this would breach Spain’s coastal law, while accusing planners of failing to properly assess the risks posed by coastal flooding, rising sea levels and climate change.
Environmentalists have also criticised the amount of public green space included in the plans, saying the proposed 19% is not enough.
They warn it would disrupt the coastal ecological corridor – a continuous strip of natural habitat that allows wildlife to move between different areas.
The project has been in the works since 2025, when Marbella town hall approved an initial planning document allowing the plans to move forward.
They are now going through further planning and environmental checks, as well as a public consultation.
The hotel is planned for a 4,752-square-metre plot between the beach and the A-7.
The plans would create around 9,500 square metres of total floor space, despite the site currently being occupied by a single-family home.
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