Proposal for the revision of the General Town Plan - 2005

INITIAL PROPOSAL FOR THE REVISION OF THE CURRENT GENERAL TOWN PLAN

AGENDA21 XABIA (Urbanisation round Table, Agenda21 2005)

BACKGROUND NOTES:

The revision of the General Town Plan of Xabia (PGOU) must incorporate citizen’s participation through the local Agenda 21 programme.

This citizen’s participation is defined in the Letter of Aalborg signed by the Town Hall

Our proposal has been prepared without concrete key facts and figures. They have not been made available by the Town Hall.

The PGOU of 1965 and the revision of 1990 were based on land classification, extensive construction of houses, and consequent high population over the long term

According to these plans they foresaw a town of 200,000 inhabitants living in around 60,000 dwellings

The growth was to be essentially due to “residential tourists” living in dispersed houses on plots of 1000 – 1500 square metres.

The development initially was mainly in urbanisations, somewhat isolated one from the other.

Since 1995, the development took place in an exponential manner, taking advantage of the LRAU (Land Grab Law)

Since 1999, a rapid expansion in the intensive construction of apartments blocks has taken place from the Port, through the Avenida Augusta and Carretera de la Pla

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS

(In the opinion of the Agenda21 group), the estimation of previous General Plans to end up with a final population of 170,000 to 200,000 was poorly thought out and not very realistic.

Javea does not have the resources, nor the possibilty of an infrastructure necessary for so many inhabitants plus additional mass tourism in the summer.

There is land and water perhaps, but:

Excessive growth would damage the character of the town, its environment and its image as a town of high quality.

Impose an intolerable demand on Municipal services

Affect the integration of the foreign population (95% of the population foreseen in the current General Plan)

It would be more realistic to limit the growth of the municipality up to a maximum of 75000 inhabitants.

NOTE: The continuation of urban development at its current ultra-rapid pace would result in a population of this size in very few years.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

Pace of sustainable growth:

In practice there are two main options:

Controlled growth which results in a population of 60,000 after 10 years.

A period of consolidation with minimum growth over the next 10 years.

NOTE: Considerations resulting from the enormous growth over the past 5 years are:

A period of consolidation is necessary

It would be prudent to moderate the rate of development over the next 10 years.

It is essential that the increase is gradual to:

Conserve employment opportunities for future generations

Avoid problems in the sale of dwellings

Avoid problems in the provision of municipal services.

The actual population at the end of 2005 is already in the region of 40,000 inhabitants (Estimation by the Town Hall)

There are approved licenses for 5000 houses which have not yet been constructed.

This number of dwellings represents an additional 15000 inhabitants

The majority of the Agenda 21 group prefers Option A which gives the possibility of:

The increase of an additional 5000 inhabitants

The construction of an additional 1600 dwellings.

ORGANISATION AND PLANNING

It is clear that to control the increase in the population , the future issuing of building licenses must be tightly controlled.

The New General Plan must take into account:

The necessity of concentrating intensive construction in existing urban areas.

The provision of more “Green Areas” in urban zones.

The provision of adequate parking, both generally and in each new building.

The extension of recreational areas for sports, cultural events, parks, gardens. etc.

The exclusion of more urban development:

Near areas designated as “protected green zones”

In Rebaldi, Rafalet, Tossal Gros, Cansalades-Umbria etc.

The exclusion of large scale projects and the encouragement of local projects.

The provision of VPO (I think is low cost housing- CB-J) and the exclusion of more speculative apartments (which are not much more than “Vertical camp sites”)

The Reclassification of the land from SUNP (Suelo Urbanizable No Programado) (Subject to urbanisation, but not programmed e.g. the Golf Club area) to SNUC (Suelo No Urbanizable Comun) (This is agricultural land, upon which you can only build isolated dwellings on plots of 10,000 metres minimum)

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