When Enough Luxury Is Enough

Are the Partido Popular environmental vandals? Judging by responses from eco groups and the usual suspects on the left to plans to "unblock" certain developments on Mallorca, then the answer is yes.

As sure as governmental night followed electoral day then no sooner had the PP returned to Balearics political leadership in May than the bulldozers' engines were being revved up. It was simply a question as to how long it would take for parts of the island to be flattened and to then be built on.

I am not, though, without some sympathy for the PP, if only because they are cocking a snook at the maddeningly zealous previous administration and its PSM (Mallorcan socialists) component in particular. The decision of the Bauzá government to revoke laws of 2007 and 2008 and so permit development of some ten sites in Mallorca and Ibiza stems partly from the fact that it was facing claims of nigh on one thousand million euros from developers whose bulldozers had been stopped in their tracks.

This financial justification is probably a convenience, however. A stronger one is that, by loosening the legal noose, some activity can be put into the local economy. Which is probably true, but only up to a point.

The projects that had been put on ice range from the development of an entertainment and commercial centre in Playa de Palma to apartments in Cala Carbó in Cala San Vicente. But the projects may not stop with these. Enviro group GOB reckons that a new law would open the way to building of a sort that had been expressly prohibited - that of residential accommodation on golf courses.

Why should this matter? In a way, it shouldn't, except that it would raise the prospect of plans, such as those for the Muro golf course, currently on hold, being expanded to include accommodation. It has always been maintained that this development would be for golf and for golf alone.

It matters in this regard: Opposition to the Muro course from ordinary people of the town, and not that drummed up by the normal agitators, has centred on what is seen as being a development for the rich. You could be reasonably sure that whatever accommodation was built on a golf course, wherever it is, would not be for the ordinary people. And so it would also be with some of the projects that would be unblocked: Cala Carbó, luxury houses; two in Andratx, luxury apartments and villas.

At a time when the PP government is cutting back, when it is unable to pay various suppliers and when it has shown not the slightest hint of having something approximating to a sensitive social policy, it enters dangerous territory if all that appears to be on offer is some employment, the consequence of putting up luxury homes; luxury homes, moreover, which are likely to find foreign and part-time occupants.

It is less that environmental objections should be of concern and more that the PP appears to be betting the house on the private sector exclusively and on exclusive developments, to boot. Short-term boosts to employment in the construction industry are fine, but longer-term economic gains by flogging property to what are often absentee landlords are minor. It is a policy that heightens social division and has the potential for heightening social tensions.

There is also a certain disingenuousness on behalf of the government when it comes to the environmental aspects of developments. The reform of the tourism law, while making it easier for hotels to renovate existing sites, will not involve new building, or so the tourism minister has said. However, the tourism law is not the same as land law. In addition to luxury hotel projects in Capdepera and Campos that have already been announced, there would be a further one in Andratx. Don't discount there being others.

Again, these should all generally be welcome, but they add to a growing perception of Mallorca reclaiming for itself its old cliché of a playground for the rich but also claiming for itself a society riven by division, a chasm made wider by the vociferous noises of the environmentally-appalled left and independence elements.

At some point, enough is going to become enough, and the phenomena of the "indignados" and Occupy will take on a specifically Mallorcan characteristic. The island has yet to experience what has occurred in Sardinia, where the wealthy have been pelted with wet sand, but trouble is being stored up. What might seem like practical changes to land use could cut an awful lot deeper than might be imagined.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.