Menorca Council technicians halt the development of the countryside that the People's Party (PP) wants to implement.

CitadelThe administrative ingenuity that the People's Party (PP) had concocted to reduce territorial protection and allow for the expansion of the road, the expansion of the beaches, and the establishment of amenities, housing, accommodation, and restaurants on rural land in Menorca has gone down the drain. Just as the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) and, especially, Más por Menorca (Menorca's Workers' Party) in the opposition had already warned, the secretary of the Island Council has overturned the entire framework of the People's Party government by concluding that the modification of 95 of the 140 provisions of the PTI (Proposal for a New Territory) that it promoted "is indicative that the territorial model is being altered. It does not constitute any specific modification. It changes specific modifications. The document, moreover, is full of "contradictions" and should be amended so much so that the technical report and the Secretary's report call for a "thorough review" because "it does not conform to the current legal framework and cannot be brought to a plenary session." It's that clear.

The "significant changes" the secretary has identified are clear. The aim is to encourage the establishment of restaurants and hotels in the countryside without any ties to any agricultural activity, with the sole condition that they be buildings that "stand out for their excellence." The ban on high-consumption sports facilities, such as golf courses, is being lifted; ANIT and AIP figures are being eliminated so that protected land becomes common rural land; the protection of areas of agricultural interest is being reduced, and the door is being opened to authorizing private rural facilities under the pretext that they are "a result of the political, social, and economic evolution of the Balearic Islands."

They also want to expand the areas suitable for marketing tourist stays, authorize wintering areas for boats in violation of the Territorial Planning Guidelines (DOT), and want to allow the reconstruction, and even the relocation, of existing rural buildings, when this Secretariat of the Council sees this as a complete "lack of protection of the territory" and asks for it to be rectified.

The technicians perceive "a certain inconsistency in the discourse," since numerous articles that guaranteed the preservation of the landscape and heritage are eliminated "without any justification," and there is no evidence that, as the PP claims, "there is no environmental regression." Even the limitation of a single swimming pool per plot is eliminated - despite the pre-drying situation due to the lack of water - and the range of possibilities is opened to expand the reception capacity of pristine beaches, which are already more than saturated.

On urban land, there are also plans to increase building density and height, but the Menorca Council's technicians see no justification for this, not even an analysis of the potential effects of this measure.

Despite the obvious scope of the changes, President Adolfo Vilafranca initially denied the legal report requested by Más por Menorca, arguing that it was merely a "one-off modification that will provide the legal certainty that is currently lacking and will allow the territory to be protected like never before." Nothing could be further from the truth. When Més's request was made jointly with the PSOE and legally could not be evaded, the experts' opinions have exposed the PP. Thus, the Regional Minister for Territorial Planning, Núria Torrent, had to come forward to acknowledge the legal debacle and announce that the modification must be processed more slowly.

The opposition is celebrating the fact that they have been ruled in favor and that, with this strike, it is guaranteed that the new PTI cannot be definitively approved or enter into force before the end of the term. Even so, the PSOE and Més are challenging the PP for the legal "mess" it has created, its institutional "irresponsibility," and the "deception" it has attempted to con the citizens. "It's the same old PP, the same one that approved the Territorial Regulation between 2011 and 2015," says Socialist spokesperson Susana Mora, "but with the difference that back then at least they were upfront, and now they tell us they don't want to change the territorial model when in fact they're trying to overturn it from top to bottom through the back door." "What credibility does a government have when it boasts of legal certainty and then reality so clearly contradicts it?" asks Més spokesperson Noemí Garcia.

Internal voices within the PP have also expressed their disenchantment with the "legal botched job" of the Consell government, which will now have to hire a team to bring order and coherence to the six external studies commissioned over the last year to try to dress up the changes, which have already cost 100,000 euros. The environmental study was carried out by engineer Antoni Roca, the same one who, through his consultancy firm Abril, prepared the environmental assessment for the three Alaior hotels now facing charges for using an illegal well and attempting to disguise as cisterns what were actually 16 swimming pools.

The new PTI must contain, among other elements, a calculation of the maximum number of tourists allowed in Menorca. However, the tourist carrying capacity study commissioned by the Consell government has also been corrected by its own technicians. The study, which concludes that Menorca could still have 24,000 more tourist beds, reaching 107,917, is "insufficient," according to the Land Use Planning report, which notes that, beyond urban planning and density parameters, "the other current effects" of the resident population have not been taken into account.

The carrying capacity study only analyzes three of the 12 groups of the Indicator System required by the Law on Urgent Measures for the Sustainability and Circularity of the Balearic Islands and has only taken into account 10 of the 69 indicators usually recorded by the Socio-Environmental Observatory of Menorca (Obsam). Therefore, the architect's conclusion is to propose that Obsam review, and if necessary, redo the study. The legal shock could not be more shocking.