Home » Sport » How the mess of El Arsenal de Elche was arrived at: chronology of another urban conflict

How the mess of El Arsenal de Elche was arrived at: chronology of another urban conflict

ELCHE. This Friday the Governing Board will approve a motion for the Department of Urban Planning to prepare a technical proposal that tries to fit the rights acquired by the Urban Interest Grouping (AIU) E-16 Portes Encarnades and the declaration of World Heritage Site of the palm grove. As this newspaper said, after Culture did not authorize the project, the bipartisan seeks to compensate both interests by reducing heights and therefore buildability, or by moving it to another sector. But how did it get to this point so many years later?

A long process that goes back two decades

In hindsight, the industry, also known as Finca El Arsenal —Or Granados Espuig— for the archaeological site that exists there, the development of the same began in 1998 by this AIU to approve the Partial Plan, approved in June 2002. Since then it has been paralyzed, with the owners raising the necessary money and a real estate crisis through, until in 2011 the first modification of this Partial Plan is approved, and a second and final one in 2013 in which one more height is allowed. Eight. The novelty came in August 2018, when the group presented the urbanization according to this Partial Plan. A year later, in 2019, the archaeological tastings begin, as advanced Alicante Plaza, although in March 2020 Culture gave the unfavorable and final report in the same sense in December of that year.

Before going into the matter, it should be noted that there was already an attempt to build on the land in the early 90s with several surveys, but in 1991 the proposed urban plan was withdrawn. Burials were found and a sarcophagus that was broken during the tasting, and in the report of the excavation – directed by the same archaeologists as the last survey – a section of a road that presents great similarities with other remains of the Via Augusta, so it could be part of it; kilns that suggest that the deposit may be the industrial pottery of The Alcudia and prehistoric structures. Apart from this, there is an unprotected manor house of popular architecture from the late s. XIX.

How has the current situation been reached and why?

Parallel to the reactivation of the action, two complaints from groups and individuals opposed to the project, warning of the possible damage to the palm grove, make the Subdirectorate General for Historical Heritage request a report on the performance. In October 2019, the Unesco World Heritage Center, and in February 2020 a letter was received from the Institute of Cultural Heritage – dependent on the Ministry of Culture – urging the City Council not to allow the work considering that the 953 floors, some with eight heights, by ensuring that tThey have an impact on the landscape of the palm grove and distort it. It is then when the Ministry summons the Consell and City Council to address the situation, and the bipartisan commits to an intermediate point that allows them to combine two interests, which is seen positively from Madrid and Valencia, after passing through their filter.

The problems: no Palm Grove Law or application of Unesco criteria

But what does this landscape impact refer to? First, the Ministry understands that high-rise constructions in relation to the existing palm orchards – three of them declared Unesco, Hort de Portes Encarnades, the Hort de Sansano or del Filador and the southern area of ​​the Hort de Toni Escorina—, generate an urban structure “completely alien to the historical plot, losing the paths and connections of the place, thus diminishing its cultural values”, understanding that this impact on the immediate surroundings leaves uses that are not very compatible with the traditional agricultural character of the Property , affecting the function of the ditches —in a state of degradation, on the other hand— and “causes alterations that degrade and contaminate their visual perception, both of their identity profile from the outside, and from the historic orchards to the buffer zone.”

The latter is important, since the so-called zone buffer, or buffer zone is a concept that was introduced with the Unesco declaration of World Heritage in 2000. It assumes that to preserve this visual value, a specific space must be left to oxygenate the distance between orchards and nearby buildings. It is no longer possible, a priori, to build next to an orchard. In addition, this buffer zone has an equivalence, like the natural framework itself, to protection classified as Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC).

As a consequence, given the green light of said file during these years, now the promoters of the sector complain, with good reason according to their interests, that the action is paralyzed, since during these two decades of processing they have been authorized the urban work step by step. Although 2013 the Partial Plan is definitively approved with the PP in the government and Vicente Granero as mayor of Urbanism, also authorizing one more height, with 8-story buildings, the 2011 project that the PSOE Executive had approved contemplated only one less height, 7. In 2009, the then Socialist mayor of Urbanism, Alejandro Pérez, reported that the approval of the construction of 953 homes in the E-16 sector. In 2011 he even proposed the creation of a botanical garden in this sector, designed by the urban planner Alfonso Vegara.

A bigger and bigger ball and a difficult fit

So, these muds from those muds. In 2002 the City Council approved the Partial Plan for urban development, just two years after the Palm Grove Law was approved, which already warned of the buffer zone and its role as a safeguard of the landscape image. Since then, modifications and approvals of the project by both administrations, with private investments in between, inflating the ball until it burst a couple of years ago with the complaints about the affection of the palm grove, with subsequent negative reports from the Ministry and Culture .

Now it seems like a solution that the mayor of Urbanism Ana Arabid Recognize “complex” for the situation. As a complex is this fit, although the will is to find a solution to avoid another possible judicial path if the owners require their rights and because the councilor also points out that the development of the city must continue. It remains to be expected what arises in that reduction of heights that the AIU says was already planned so as not to affect because they are staggered. And if it would be willing to grow expanding on the ground and not in height, or give up part of the promotion.

The other alternative, moving the buildable area, seems difficult: are more than 100,000 m2 of buildable area between commercial and residential areas those approved. And there are few sectors in Elche free or ready with that size, although recently it was approved to release a large sector, the E-48, reserved years ago by the IVVSA for VPO. Meanwhile, the municipal priority is to protect the palm grove. The archaeological site remains in the background, and Culture says that what is relevant has already been preserved, without having value of what was found in situ, something that would contrast with what was published by the archaeologist two decades ago. Or with Culture leaving the door open to protecting the site. In any case, since there is no possible access to these reports without being an interested party or to the archaeological memories without consent, public information is lacking to understand all the parts of this framework. Be that as it may, there will be more chapters.

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