The Plaza 3 of the Administrative Litigation Section of the Court of First Instance of Almería has this Thursday left the procedure opened as a result of the lawsuit filed by several environmental groups against the unified environmental authorization granted to rehabilitate the Cortijo Las Chiqueras as a hotel, located in the bay of Genoveses, within the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park.
The oral hearing, which had been postponed on several occasions, served for the lawyers and experts of the suing environmental associations, as well as the representatives of the Junta de Andalucía and the company Torres y González Díaz SL --promoter of the action-- to present their reports and defend their opposing positions on the future of the hotel. The City Council of Níjar, despite being listed as a party in the procedure, did not attend the session.
Throughout approximately an hour and a half, the Junta de Andalucía maintained that the rehabilitation of existing farmhouses and constructions fits into a model of sustainable tourism in the natural park, supported by both the Natural Resources Management Plan (PORN) and the Use and Management Master Plan (PRUG).
The parties are now awaiting to present their written conclusions, a procedure that will be carried out without the need for a new hearing. In this context, the suing groups have requested that the Territorial Delegation of Sustainability and Environment incorporate into the file a report on the updated study of the avifauna present in the Campillo de Genoveses, considering that it could be affected by the execution of the project.
The Mediterranean Ecologist Group, Friends of the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, and the Citizen platform "Genoveses without hotel," which have gathered after the session at the doors of the City of Justice to make their rejection of the establishment visible, argue that a favorable ruling would guarantee the preservation of the landscape and the valuable ecosystem that hosts this bay.
In this sense, they have focused on the botanical endemisms present in the environment, such as the cornical, the palmito, the launea, the asparagus, the dragoncillo, the ephedra, or the Cape saffron; as well as on the steppe birds that use the area as a foraging ground and that are listed in the Andalusian Catalog of Threatened Species, among them the Bonelli's eagle, the ortega bustard, the common bustard, the stone-curlew, the trumpet finch, and the ricotí lark, in addition to various endemic invertebrates in "serious danger of extinction."
The presence of this flora and fauna, in their opinion, would require the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment to review its rulings on the species of the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park and to update the PORN and the PRUG, which have been "expired since 2016" when "they should have been reviewed and updated in 2024" after exceeding the eight years of extension provided for in Decree 37/2008.
Hotel project and environmental authorization
The promoted plan foresees converting an old agricultural and livestock farmhouse into a small "charming hotel" with 30 rooms for 60 guests, with an outdoor pool and a parking lot with capacity for 70 vehicles.
The Junta de Andalucía granted environmental authorization for the project in October 2024, considering it "legally compliant," dismissing the six allegations made by environmental groups, which denied that the initiative had the appropriate justification of "public and social interest" required by the regulations.
In relation to this point, the Andalusian government insisted that the declaration and processing as an action "of public and social interest" "corresponds in any case to the City Council" in application of the List, which regulates extraordinary interventions on rustic land that can be authorized "extraordinarily" and "as long as they are not expressly prohibited by legislation or by the current planning," among other conditions.
For the environmental organizations, on the other hand, the project implies raising an infrastructure "suitable for holding mass events, such as weddings that can concentrate several hundred people and vehicles, with a noise, light, and dust impact totally inadequate for an area of special protection, declared C1, where only traditional agricultural and livestock activities or seasonal hunting are permitted."
They have also recalled that the municipality of Níjar has 13,183 accommodation places, of which 4,833 are located in San José and its immediate surroundings: 1,250 in hotels, 2,936 in tourist-use homes, 449 in studios and apartments, 160 in camping areas, and 38 in rural accommodations.
In this line, they emphasize that the area where the new establishment is projected "already has two 4-star hotels in San José: Hotel El Sotillo and Hotel Doña Pakita, the first of which closes four months a year due to lack of clientele." For conservationists, this data would show that "new hotel infrastructures are not necessary, especially in areas of special protection, such as Campillo de Genoveses."
Fear of a call effect in the natural park
Ecologists warn that the eventual final approval of this hotel, whose processing has been dragging since 2020, would have a "huge impact on the rest of the Natural Park causing an avalanche of similar projects" sheltered under the formula of "rehabilitating ruins."
They warn that this would increase human pressure on protected sites under various international conservation figures. Therefore, they demand that the administrations take on their responsibility and "ensure the conservation and use of this public space, so that it can be enjoyed by all citizens in a responsible and sustainable manner."