The Junta de Andalucía's new housing tzar, Rosa Urioste, at a meeting in Chiclana yesterday (a PSOE-run Cadiz town with many 'viviendas ilegales' and an active British property owners association), says that the - wait for it - three hundred thousand illegal homes in Andalucía - may be savable with new proposals from the Junta. These are, in effect, to legalise by owners paying for the necessary re-zoning and urbanising costs (where possible). The remarks come from an article in today's Diario de Cadiz entitled 'Cross it out and start again'.
'We suggest useful solutions and generous treatment for the homeowners of these 'irregular houses'', said the politician.
'Irregular'. See - we're half-way there already.
The other part of the Junta's plan is that no more illegal houses are to be built - ever - and any that are must be demolished at once (the 'derribo express').
The mayor of Chiclana supported the idea - 'we are in politics to look out for our citizens, we can't ignore this problem'.
'There are rules', thundered Rosa Urioste, 'and they must be obeyed'. These include the Junta-designed and controlled limits to urban spread in smaller communities, in essence moving people city-wards while ignoring the opportunities to enrichen and re-populate the countryside.
'This won't be an urban amnesty', chimed in Pablo Lorenzo, the Cadiz director of Obras Públicas (Almería doesn't at this moment have one since the oily Mr Caparrós was sacked last month). Town halls are expected to put together a list of their urban failings from which the appropriate solutions may be found over the next two years.
So, who is to blame? Rosa Urioste reckons we all are: 'el que compró, el que parceló, el que construyó sin permiso, el que miró para otro lado': the buyer, the promoter, the builder and the one who looked the other way (it's as close as she could get to say the word 'politician').