The villa of former footballer and coach Xabi Alonso in San Sebastián must be demolished, since the license granted in 2018 is “null and impossible to legalize.” This is stated in a ruling, for which an appeal is still possible, from the Contentious-Administrative Court number 3 of the capital of San Sebastian, which emphasizes that the building is “illegal” because it does not comply with the obligation for this area to “maintain the rural typology”. “The building has nothing to do with the reconstruction of the original hamlet,” say the complainants, whom the court has agreed with.
The villa in question is located next to the cliffs of Igeldo, near the coastline that heads west to the municipality of Orio. Its construction was highly questioned around 2022, once completed. Then, in November of that year, the environmental group Haritzalde, the cultural group Ieltxo and two other neighborhood groups in Igeldo filed a complaint in which they alluded to multiple irregularities and, particularly, focused on the actions of the Donostia/San City Council. Sebastián, who four years earlier had granted the license.
According to them, the villa is “an immense chalet, without any rural typology”, so it would fail to comply with “the legal obligation that all new construction adhere to the image of the traditional farmhouses in the area.”
The promoters of the house, on the other hand, pointed out that it complies “with the spirit of protection of an area of ??high strategic value and geological interest, proposing a construction with a landscape sense that tries to adapt to the hillside condition of the plot.” . In addition, they linked the project with the reconstruction of a farmhouse that had been demolished eight kilometers away, in the Martutene neighborhood.
Now, the Contentious-Administrative Court number 3 of the capital of Gipuzkoa agrees with the complainants, referring mainly to the typology of the home, but also to other aspects that it considers irregular.
“The housing is illegal because it has nothing to do with the reconstruction of the original hamlet and because in the reconstructed building the obligation to maintain the rural typology is not fulfilled at all,” the complainants point out. Likewise, the court has declared the construction of a roof on the chalet “illegal”.
The complainants also questioned the habitable surface area allowed by the license granted by the San Sebastián City Council. “The property had 406.8 square meters of living space, and it did not have a basement. However, the city council has given them permission to build a 1,145 square meter house with a basement,” they denounced.
Once the ruling is known, these groups denounce the actions of the San Sebastian City Council, which they consider “bad and frivolous”, favorable to the promoters of the building, whom they also blame for having acted with “spectacular audacity”. “They devised non-existent accesses, They claimed a buildable area that did not exist in the original building and, in the case of the basement, they clearly exceeded what could be allowed,” they point out.
In the opinion of the complainants, the San Sebastián City Council “accepted these requests, contravening the rules or lengthening and twisting them to infinity,” “instead of defending the logic and rights of citizens.”
“When they have been reported, they have reacted by even modifying the regulations to try to subsequently cover up the legality of the basement and the flat roof, or by leaving the complaint filed against the work in November 2022 unanswered,” they conclude.
