Spanish coastal cleanup

Ecology groups and estate agents are backing the Spanish government's drive to clean up the country's coastline and take property back into state ownership or demolish it.

But a protest group formed to help foreign property owners in Spain fight the move believes up to half a million apartment and villa owners, restaurant and hotel proprietors could be affected. Many of them are Spaniards but a significant number are foreign owners and the group is already representing 2,000.

The new Socialist government is enforcing a much-neglected 1988 law and getting tough about what constitutes coastal public domain — the strip of land stretching back from the water's edge — and telling thousands of house and apartment owners their properties do not really belong to them.

'This is the single biggest assault on private property we have seen,' said Jose Ortega, a spokesman for the group and lawyer for many of those affected. At best, owners are being given 60-year concessions to live on the property or operate their businesses. Others are threatened with demolition.

The government insists the coast has to be saved. 'We're taking the law seriously,' said the Environment Ministry's coastal department director, Jose Fernandez. 'Previous governments didn't think it was important, while we have made it a priority.'

The government is finishing the process of drawing the line that designates what is state-owned and cannot contain private property along Spain's 6,200 miles of coast.

Many people are suddenly finding they're on the wrong side of the dividing line. Ortega's group alleges the government is drawing it selectively, targeting individuals but shying away from tourist resorts.

Fernandez denies the government has plans for mass demolitions or immediate expropriations. Barring exceptional cases, he says, people whose property is in the public domain will be able to continue living or working there.

Ortega says that is not comforting. 'Today anybody who owns or wants to own a home or property on the coast can't be sure because at any moment the government can take it away from you without compensation,' he said.

Those backing the government disagree. 'It was the politics of money today, forget about tomorrow.' said said Luis Cerrillo, head Ecologist in Action's Valencia region.

Gordon Turnbull of Blue Med estate agents in the eastern Murcia region also backs the move and says the coastal law might actually stimulate the market by making the coast prettier.

On two nearby beaches, he says, there are the shells of two major apartment buildings, illegal and unfinished monstrosities. 'They put people off buying here,' said Turnbull. 'People appreciate seeing an eyesore getting knocked down. The government's not doing enough.'

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