Spectacular rise in building on rural land

SELVA
THERE has been a dramatic change in the rural area of the town of Selva over the past seven years, when there has been a considerable increase in building in the countryside, leaving it covered in chalets and big houses.

The Majorcan Socialists' spokesperson, Arnau Amer, has criticised this situation and said that “some of these new buildings are not legal”.
Amer explained that “the owners say that a small house was on their land before 1958, and that they were given a building licence to restore this house, although many of them have put up totally new buildings which are inconsistent with the old building. They are taking advantage of the fact that there was a small, ruined house on their land to build a disproportionate new one”.

On one of the estates, Arnau Amer said that the owners had completely destroyed the old house which had been there and started to construct a large villa situated in the centre of the rural land “and all this has been done without getting the appropriate approval”, he said.

In addition to this, Amer said that in some cases “new houses are built on estates without the appropriate amount of land”. One of the reasons which is encouraging a lot of building on rural land in Selva is the resurfacing of the network of the rural roads by the council. Amer said that “many of the owners are taking advantage of this to ask for the surfacing to be extended to the entrance of their properties, so they are improving many parts which only lead to private properties. “This will only lead to a further increase in rural building and to private properties increasing in value”.
Another of the reasons which is causing a disproportionate increase in rural building is the proliferation of water meters. “A great number of new water meters have been installed on estates and paths, which also means a lack of control of leaks”, according to Amer.