The beachside demolitions recently undertaken at Monte Gordo in the far eastern Algarve are part of a Coastal Zone Management Plan that covers the shoreline and immediate land between Vilamoura in the central Algarve and Vila Real de Santo António overlooking the Spanish border.
This plan was approved in 2005 and eleven years later, the demolition of two old, abandoned restaurants went ahead with no public outcry as plans commence to change Monte Gordo into a higher-class tourist zone.
To Luís Gomes, Mayor of Vila Real de Santo António, "the measure is clearly positive and marks the first step of what will be the rehabilitation of the seafront at Monte Gordo, an area that is to be modern, attractive and dynamic."
The approved plan included the removal of two old restaurants and the installation of beach facilities with associated equipment.
The Vilamoura to Vila Real de Santo António management plan was approved eleven years ago by the Council of Ministers chaired by José Sócrates and covers not only the mainland coastal zones but the Ria Formosa islands where demolitions have been suspended “until the end of the summer season,” according to Prime Minister António Costa in one of his successful delaying actions to defuse anger over the planned and wholly unnecessary destruction of further island properties.
The Ria Formosa island residents await the definitive answer to their plight as promised by the Minister for the Environment in a phone call with the Minister of the Sea, Ana Paulo Vitorino, who was in Olhão in March and reported to protestors that the demolitions situation was being studied by the minister and “in two weeks time a consensual solution" will be announced.
The two weeks was up, rather appropriately on April 1st. This was one of a string of lies from politicians in this struggle that has been noted for the number of un-kept promises as the islanders try desperately to keep the demolition crews at bay.
Local blog Olhão Livre concludes that the residents of the Ria Formosa islands seem to have believed the words of the politicians and they think all will be well. The writer warns that islanders should remember that politicians are just well-dressed crooks who are apt to claim that ‘black is white and white is black.’
The Portuguese Environment Agency can propose a new coastal development plan whenever it chooses. This agency is run by the Algarve’s public enemy #2, Sebastião Teixeira who also runs Polis, the company that had made it its mission to knock down as many island properties as it can in the time allotted. Only legal moves by islanders and the Olhão mayor have managed to block or maybe delay the eradication of hundreds more properties by Polis.
The Portuguese Environment Agency has moved its activities westwards with a new development plan for the Odeceixe to Vilamoura coastal zone, a plan shortly to be approved by the Council of Ministers.
This new 'list of things to do' replaces the two previous ones and is heavy on demolitions. Teixeira appears to have a vision that each and every beach must be uniform with tourism facilities and heavily scoured cliffs, piles of dredged sand and a uniformity that is anathema to the Algarve’s varied beach offering.
There are 11 more beaches due to undergo the Environment Agency’s makeover blueprint, despite the recent trashing of the once beautiful Dona Ana beach in Lagos triggering universal shock at the mess made of the job by the agency that was meant to be protecting the environment.
The Odeceixe to Vilamoura plan covers 210 kilometers from the coastline of Aljezur, Vila do Bispo, Lagos, Portimão, Lagoa, Silves and Albufeira.
According to the document, Aljezur will lose two buildings on Carreagem beach and 38 at Monte Clérigo. See http://portugalresident.com/algarve%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cdemolition-man%E2%80%9D-targets-clinker-built-charm-of-monte-cl%C3%A9rigo
In Vila do Bispo, the plan includes the demolition of three buildings on Mareta beach at Sagres, including a restaurant and the former Oceanis Foundation building. Demolitions are planned at Beliche and Furnas beaches.
In Lagos a tourist building next to Dona Ana beach will go. In Portimão, the existing beach facilities at Prainha, Alvor will be demolished as well as a café located on Vau beach.
In Lagoa, the plan provides for the removal of buildings on Pintadinho beach, in Albufeira two luxury villas are to be torn down by Galé beach and in Silves two bars will go at Armação de Pêra.
But it is the charming picture postcard seaside settlement of Monte Clérigo that is the hardest hit with 35 houses, a garage, the 'O Sargo' restaurant and half a public toilet due to be cleared away to make way for sand in some sort of bizarre quest to punish property owners.
This planned destruction serves no social or environmental purpose and the local town hall and residents will resist Teixeira's destructive remit to the limit of the law, and beyond.
The new plan to destroy properties along the beaches and inlets of the Algarve will drift on until 2021 with the cost of these demolitions to the taxpayer exceeding €5.3 million.
Olhão Livre warns that the ease with which the state can move to demolish inconvenient structures, however well used or well loved they may be, gives diminishing hope to the Ria Formosa islanders who in the past have had help from local mayor António Pina and Luis Graça and other local Socialists.
Politicians have helped convince the residents of the islands that everything would be resolved with the “consensual solution” referred to by the minister - but never attempted.
One of the moral problems the Environment Agency has is its refusal to demolish the apartment buildings in Fuseta owned by a local property magnate, or the vast shoreside villa owned by the US Secretary of State John Kerry and his wife at Fábrica.
These structures stand in the Public Maritime Domain and as such should be removed: the ‘Maritime Domain’ claim being one of many used by Polis to demolish over 300 Ria Formosa island buildings.
The islanders are safe in their properties until the end of the summer and unless the government does what it promised and allows them to live unmolested by instruments of the State, as the tourists drift away the fight will have resume for the islanders to retain their property and their unique way of life.
