The bursting of the real estate bubble that occurred in 2008 drastically slowed down the execution of many urban projects already approved throughout Spain, with special impact in areas, such as the coast of Alicante, which in the previous decade had experienced a fever for “sowing ” of bricks that threatened to exhaust every last meter of available coastline.

Already in 2019, when the real estate sector was beginning to recover, the environmental organization Greenpeace warned in a report that many of these plans were being reactivated. Then the pandemic arrived and a new sudden stop in activity. Five years later, the cranes are once again taking up positions and, with them, the neighborhood and environmental movements are also reactivated that try to save the few natural spaces that still survive on the coast of the Costa Blanca or prevent the development of large Conservation Plans. Integrated Action (PAI) together with natural environments that do not enjoy legal protection.

One of these cases has mobilized various associations in Teulada-Moraira, against the construction of no less than 90 homes in the Molinet pine forest, one of the few natural spaces that barely remains next to l’Ampolla beach, in This tourist area located north of Calp, highly appreciated by residents of numerous nationalities who live in the thousands of chalets and apartments that dot a landscape that, despite everything, still retains its attractiveness.

In just ten days, more than 2,700 people have signed on an internet platform against this project conceived in 2002, when the owners of the land in Pineda del Molinet and the then mayor of the municipality, José Ciscar, of the PP, signed an agreement that implied permission to build 138 homes in this pine forest.

In 2004, as explained by the promoters of the Save Moraira campaign, the same government team modified the general plan that had been in force since 1995, which prevented the construction of townhouses, in order to be able to build in this pine forest.

The plan was put on hold due to the crisis and in 2016 the land could be acquired by the City Council for around 4 million euros. According to the neighborhood platform, “the purchase was acceptable at the time but the government team did not want to acquire them. If this had been the case, citizens would now be able to choose what use to give to this green space. In 2017, developer Taylor Wimpey presented a project that would be carried out in 2019.

Just 15 kilometers from Moraira, inland, in Xaló, a hundred people attended the screening of ‘Green Paradise’ last Saturday. The European California’, a screening organized by the platform ‘Salvem la Vall: Stop MacroPAI de Llíber’, which opposes another old project, which the real estate crash stopped when its construction was incipient.

Now, the Vapf company hopes that certain legal obstacles will be resolved to carry out the construction of 488 chalets, on a virgin slope of the Vall de Pop that borders the Solana de Benissa and is close to the Serra de Bèrnia.

The opposition platform, which has collected signatures and presented a manifesto signed by experts and university professors, argues that this plan comes from another time and responds to a “speculative dynamic” that is unsustainable today.

Meanwhile, to the south, on the Orihuela coast, the last virgin beach on the coast, Cala Mosca, could soon cease to be so. Since the 1990 PGOU authorized it, projects have been planned on the site that did not materialize for various reasons, such as the aforementioned paralysis of the sector, or the recourse to the courts of those who opposed the construction. But last November the TSJCV rejected the last of them. So, if a higher authority does not prevent it, the Gomendio Group will be able to build the more than 2,200 homes planned on the coastline