Town planning citations in 2014: one every five days

The town planning and territory office of the Formentera Council announced today that in 2014 seventy-seven proceedings were opened for violations of the town planning code, chiefly for construction without a permit and improper permit for activities undertaken.

Put in other words, citations for town planning infractions were issued every 4.7 days, or once every 3.2 days when counting only business days.

Of the total, 14 cases eventually led to a demolition order being issued and 19 were legitimised, either because the offender obtained the required permit or the house or building was returned to its previous condition. The remaining cases are still in proceedings.

The 77 infractions led to 28 sanctionary measures being pursued by the local administration. Of those, nine were finally concluded, which led to a total collection of €280,000 in fines. Since Law 2/2014 took effect concerning land-use ordinances in the Balearics, sanctionary measures are adopted when the proceeding to re-establish legitimacy fails.

In 2013 seventy-two town planning infractions were cited, five less than in 2014. Of that total, 29 of the citations led to a demolition order and 37 were legitimised.

During that same year, the administration moved to adopt sanctionary measures in 42 cases, of which 11 were paid out. This resulted in €95,000 in fee collections.