The Algarve’s council chiefs are appalled at changes to the Odeceixe to Vilamoura coastal plan recently presented as a fait accompli by Sebastião Teixeira, the reviled president of the Algarve Environmental Agency.
The mayors, under the unifying banner of their association, AMAL, have accused the Environment Agency of simply ignoring their contributions to the coastal plan.
AMAL president Jorge Botelho urgently wants to meet the Minister of the Environment, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, to explain the mayors’ total upset at the way the Algarve Environment Agency has distorted agreed plans and has taken planning laws into to its own hands by riding roughshod over the existing regional planning instrument for the Algarve, PROTAL.
The mayors accuse Teixeira of "institutional disloyalty" for ignoring their contributions to the Programa da Orla Costeira Odeceixe-Vilamoura (POC-OV) coastal plan and for pressing ahead regardless with demolitions to viable and long-standing properties for no clear reason.
Lagos council complains that the decisions that affect its waterfront and downtown area are completely impractical. Aljezur council says that the gap between PROTAL and the agency’s plan is unacceptable.
Jorge Botelho says the mayors “are totally dissatisfied with the Algarve Environmental Agency’s position on this matter" and ask for "greater involvement of the councils on issues of planning regulations in the territory which is fundamental to the development of tourism and the protection of the environment.”
The mayors already have lost all respect for the head of the Algarve Environmental Agency whose chief, Sebastião Teixeira also is the president of Polis, the company owned by the State which has been involved in the demolition of property on the Algarve’s Ria Formosa islands.
Sebastião ‘Demolition Man’ Teixeira’s behaviour over the island properties has been that of an automaton and only deft legal moves by the islanders and Olhão council has managed to halt the destruction of all 800 island properties on the Polis list.
The new plan for the Odeceixe to Vilamoura coastal settlements submitted by the Algarve Environmental Agency involves yet more destruction of private property including houses, cafes and half a toilet block.
The sooner Teixeira is 'retired' by the Minister for the Environment, the better as these two major projects have been managed in a bullying, arrogant and devious manner to the detriment of locals and to the increasing ire of the region’s mayors and the distress of property owners who voices in the debate also have been ignored.
See also:
'Demolitions to sweep away bars and villas at 11 more Algarve beaches'
'Almargem highly critical of 'biased' coastal development plan'
'Lagos council says the Environment Agency is being 'downright dishonest''
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