The Alicante City Council will not exercise its right of first refusal and repurchase on the homes of the controversial Les Naus residential complex that both the former Urban Planning councilor, Rocío Gómez, and the developer of the urbanization, Francisco Ordiñana, have put up for sale. During the ordinary plenary session held today, Thursday, Gómez’s successor, Antonio Peral, cited “objective data” and “technical reports” to defend this waiver. Among them, that, indeed, “this type of property” does not fit “the socioeconomic profile of the applicants.” Despite being established as public protection housing (VPP), the apartments in Les Naus, acquired for about 200,000 euros, half the average value of the area where they are located, are out of reach for “public housing applicants” for rent, with incomes not exceeding 18,000 euros per year.
It was the president of the Les Naus cooperative, Luis Alberto Meler, who confirmed that both Gómez, the councilor who had to resign after the scandal, and Ordiñana, developer and therefore the one who allocated the homes, were putting their apartments on the market. According to the PSOE municipal spokesperson, Ana Barceló, Ordiñana plans to transfer his apartment to a company “of which he himself is the sole administrator.” The revelation reactivated the archives. In February, shortly after the newspaper Información revealed that several of these luxury apartments, with a pool, sports courts, gym, and social center, located in the exclusive area of Alicante’s beaches, had been allocated to both municipal staff and the Housing Department or their relatives, bypassing all requirements, the government team of the Popular mayor Luis Barcala announced that it was processing with Housing the agreement that would regulate the preferential acquisitions of the apartments for sale.
Barceló asked about this promise in the plenary session. She emphasized that the agreement was never signed and argued that the only thing the City Council and the regional cabinet headed by the councilor Susana Camarero have done, in her opinion, is “passing the responsibility from one administration to another.” The one in charge of responding was Peral, who was blunt. “The answer is no,” he said. “If your question is whether we are going to buy VPP in Playa San Juan, La Condomina, or Vistahermosa,” three of the areas with the highest income levels in Alicante, “the answer is no. Rest assured,” concluded the current Urban Planning councilor. It is in La Condomina where the 144 homes of Les Naus were built, the first VPP development in the city in several decades.
Read more Two men aged 51 and 42 arrested as alleged responsible for the Almorox fire
Peral began defending his position based on the economic level of applicants for public rental housing. “The data from the municipal census of rental housing applicants since its implementation confirm 870 active applications from applicants with incomes below 2.5 times the Iprem, that is, 18,000 euros per year.” Far from the 54,000 maximum income for a family group specified in the requirements questioned in the Les Naus scandal. “Furthermore,” he continued, “we have technical reports from the Housing Board that advise against acquiring this type of property for the municipal public housing stock, precisely because they do not fit the socioeconomic profile of the applicants.”
In his opinion, “that is the real housing emergency in Alicante and that is where this government team makes every possible effort. “Incorporating this type of property into the municipal public housing stock would neither be sustainable nor provide an effective response to the real demand nor to the priority group” of the Housing Board, he maintained. “Do they really ask us to buy a home with the money of the residents of Villafranqueza, Virgen del Remedio, or San Blas,” marginal or working-class neighborhoods, “that vulnerable families currently waiting in Alicante cannot afford?” he asked. “That is not the housing policy that corresponds to us at the municipal level,” although it was in the case of the beach area urbanization.
Read more El Arenal Sound expects to gather 300,000 people in the summer ritual of urban sound