The first section of the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV) has endorsed the decisions of the Generalitat not to grant Valencia an extension of the deadlines of the Strategic Territorial Action (ATE) of the Nou Mestalla as well as its subsequent decision to terminate it early due to the club’s non-compliance.
In two sentences, which are not final and can be appealed before this same Chamber or before the Supreme Court, the TSJCV confirms that the club incurred various breaches in this 2015 urban plan, which is why it rejects the two appeals from Valencia and recalls, mainly , its unfulfilled obligation to build an iconic hotel in phase 1 of the ATE on the plot of the new City Hall on Avenida de Aragón.
This non-compliance was one of the arguments of the Department of Sustainable Economy to, in November and 2021, deny the reorganization and extension of the phases planned for the execution of the ATE requested by Valencia and in its ruling the TSJCV ratifies that the club “failed, for reasons solely attributable to him and not to the Valencia City Council,” his obligation to build, “within the non-extendable period of three years,” that hotel.
It also considers all the obligations assumed by the club in Phase II of the ATE unfulfilled, including the completion of the works on the Nou Mestalla and its start-up, something that the entity itself acknowledged in a letter in July 2021.
The magistrates rule out that these non-compliances were due to “procedural delays” or “inactivity” attributable to the Valencia City Council.
The second appeal, against the early expiration of the ATE decreed by the Plenary of the Consell on July 29, 2022, has also been rejected in its entirety. In this case, the Court rejects the expiration of the deadlines to issue this administrative resolution and insists once again on the developer’s failure to comply with its obligation to build the hotel on Avenida de Aragón.
Regarding the Nou Mestalla, already in phase 2 of the ATE, the Chamber concludes that the City Council did not approve the modified project presented by the club in February 2022 because “it incurred various deficiencies, including non-compliance with the capacity capacity minimum of the new stadium agreed in the agreement.”
In this sense, in the opinion of the magistrates, the lack of approval of this new project “is not due to municipal inactivity, but to the unsuitability of the proposal”, as well as “to the absence of financial resources on the part of the promoter for the compliance with the obligations committed to it.”
Along the same lines of non-compliance with urban planning action, the second ruling mentions the obligation that Valencia CF had to build a municipal sports center in Benicalap, the neighborhood in which the new stadium is being built.
The Chamber has rejected in both cases the arguments of Valencia, which understood that the denial of the extension and the declaration of expiration of the ATE were disproportionate measures and were contrary to the general interest. “What the general interest demands is the prompt execution of the actions provided for in the ATE, which the Valencia Club de Fútbol SAD has failed to comply with and has not proven it can carry out,” the Court notes.
