Nowhere To Go: Playa de Muro and Costas' demarcation

A year on from a demonstration against the threat of demolition of the old church bungalows of Ses Casetes des Capellans, there was another demonstration in Playa de Muro this past weekend. Unlike that of the owners of what are now holiday homes in Ses Casetes, this one was corporate; led by the big beasts of the hotel trade in the resort. The target, though, was the same - the Costas authority.

The Costas is a division of the national government's environment ministry, but such a seemingly subordinate function disguises its power. The name alone commands anxiety; it has acquired a reputation akin to the Inquisition. It scours the coastlines of Mallorca and Spain, handing out decrees that, many will argue, seem arbitrary and unfair. It appears to make things up as it goes along, applying interpretations to the law on the demarcation of coasts.

The law itself is not unreasonable. It is an attempt to right the wrongs of coastal building and environmental destruction and to maintain public access. The problems occur with interpretations as to what is "public domain", what is urban, what is legal, what is illegal, what is land "influenced" by the sea, what falls within one distance from the shorelines, within another one and then yet another. To all this can be added a history of unregulated building and dubious practice as well as the demands of tourism and of business.

The job of untangling the mess in Mallorca is that of the boss of the Costas in the Balearics. His name is Celestí Alomar. You might remember him from some years ago. It was he who fronted the eco-tax debacle when he was tourism minister in the previous Antich administration. He's no great friend to the hotels who were the ones expected to collect the eco-tax. When Antich became president again in 2007, Alomar was conspicuous by his absence from the list of new ministers. The reason was that he had fallen out so badly with business.

In Playa de Muro, there are indeed some big beasts of the hotel industry. They don't come much more respected than Iberostar. It has five hotels in the resort. They don't come much more representative of Muro business than Grupotel. This chain virtually is Muro. Its president is a former mayor, and the current mayor, Martí Fornes, is a former director of the company. The problem for Playa de Muro, though, is that it has been, along with parts of the coastlines in Pollensa and Son Servera, the target of the "new" law of demarcation in Mallorca, the determination of which has sped up considerably under Alomar's direction.

The other problem for the resort is its geography. It is essentially a strip of land with the sea to one side and the Albufera wetlands nature park to the other. The distance between shoreline and wetlands, at its shortest, is only some 200 metres, if that. In terms of "influence" by the sea, there is no land in Playa de Muro that hasn't been influenced. Last year, Alomar set the alarm bells ringing by referring to dried-out "salinas" (salt deposit/marsh). Natural, and they are evidence of influence by the sea. The interpretation is that they are public domain. And that means much of the resort. Playa de Muro was a totally artificial creation on top of what were dunes, scrub, forest and lagoon.

According to the "platform" leading the protests, some two million square metres of land are set to be reclassified as public domain, reversing the provisional demarcation made as a consequence of the law of 1988. Playa de Muro barely existed forty years ago. Much of it has been built since the late '80s, and that which was built before, even many years before, i.e. the bungalows of Ses Casetes, falls foul of that 1988 law on land demarcation, now being pursued with vigour.

What this all means is that property - of all types - is subject to the thirty year rule. It can remain, but it can't be sold. Any development, either new or additional, would be most unlikely to be approved (not of course that this always stops it being done). After the thirty years, there is the likelihood, as the land would revert to state ownership, of having to pay for the privilege to keep the property: an illogical outcome. If the buildings are environmentally harmful, then no amount of handing over money to the government makes them less so.

On the face of it, the Costas decision is madness. But whether the authority would see it through must be open to doubt. The feeling is that there will be some "horse-trading", while the big beasts, together with Muro town hall, will not take the ruling lying down.

There is, however, a different scenario. The Costas decision could well be seen as hypothetical, because thirty, forty or fifty years from now, the threat of rising sea levels will have done its work for them. It isn't a threat that should be ignored. But for Playa de Muro, for its hotels and residences, there is nowhere to go other than further inland. And further inland means one thing and one thing alone - a damn great legally protected wetlands nature park. There is nowhere to go.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.