The Ministry for the Environment, Miguel Arias Cañete, is studying the houses constructed on the beach which are affected by the ‘Ley de Costas’, considering that a ‘small annual charge’ be introduced in compensation for the public land which the property is taking up. Currently such property is exempt from the cannon because they can only be there for 30 years, extendable to 60 years. That period will start to expire in 2018, and the Minister is looking at 75 year concessions. Under the 1988 ‘Ley de Costas’ according to the Constitutional Court, the property constructed legally on the front line of the beach became property of the State. However the owners did not receive any economic compensation, but were given a concession for 30 years, extendable to 60 years, without having to pay any charge. As these concessions start to expire in 2018 thousands of properties will then be public and could be demolished without compensation. To avoid that Cañete plans to reform the Ley de Costas to extend the concessions to 75 years but with the payment of a cannon. The Minister says that there are 32,000 occupied properties which will be affected. The law also has a measure for deallocation allowing for the privatisation of plots of the coastal public land. A national platform for people affected by the law considers that this can be done to a greater extent, and note that it is probable that it will apply in the case of large urbanisations. For example, the PSOE Socialist party started this process on a plot in Roses, Girona, containing 1,000 homes and three hotels.
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