What the mountains of the construction company's other PAIs were like before and what they are like now after Llíber

The Marina Alta has been the meat of construction for decades. Since the 70s, the small region has seen its landscape change, but the 90s opened a new ban on housing construction that intensified in the 2000s with the beginning of the new century. Chalets, urbanizations, apartments and bungalows began to color spaces more and more intensively.

Abandoned semi-detached houses in Penya Rotja de Pego

2008 marked the bursting of the entire real estate bubble and the works, cranes and materials disappeared suddenly. And all those spaces, many of them already completely wrapped in concrete, remained there, some more and others less finished. Through the following images, sliding the cursor, shows how the radical change has been in some of the mountainous areas of Marina Alta after being urbanized. The oldest photograph corresponds to the 50s, while the current one is from 2023.

Different places: what has replaced vegetation

One of the first great symbols of all that residential development on a large scale in the region it has always been the Summits of the Sol in El Poble Nou de Benitatxell, since its Partial Plan began to be forged in 1973. The complex, of "3,7 million square meters of land on a virgin coast, unique in Spain", as the description of the urbanization on its website, is made up of, specifically, thirteen areas.

Ironically, each of the sectors in the Summits has been named after a different plant or tree. This is how the native vegetation of Puig de la Llorença and its terraces were replaced by countless villas and apartments with exotic and attractive nomenclatures.

Traveling to Calp, Another icon of the time is the Maryvilla urbanization. This is located on the northern slope of the Serra de Toix, which naturally delimits the regions of Marina Alta and Marina Baixa. It was also in the 70s when the chalets there began to flourish to finally name another extension of the municipality with the name that baptizes the complex.

Both Las Cumbres del Sol and Maryvilla were promoted in the two mountains of the region by VAPF SA. The company, with its headquarters in Benissa, notes in its history not far from these many others, up to a total of 14. Among the first , Canuta, also in Calp, Buenavista and Montemar in Benissa, Balcón al Mar and Tossal in Xàbiay and Monteazul again in Benitatxell.

Another great forgotten that made a dent in the northernmost landscape of the region, and that in 2022 it was announced that it would be rescued by the construction company, is the urbanization in the Penya Rotja sector of Pego. This was not started by the VAPF, but by Martinsa Fadesa, although it was never completed after entering bankruptcy proceedings on two occasions, in 2008 and 2015. It cost the Benissa company about 14 million euros to acquire it, and where in 170.000 square meters of buildable area it will be able to build up to 3.000 households.

It is now in the Valley of Pop where the eyes are set, and the protests, against a new urban project: the PAI Medina Lliber. The Integrated Action Plan contemplates the construction of 276 villas and 212 homes in a section of Muntanya Llarga oriented towards the aforementioned municipality. Political parties and citizen platforms, such as Salvem la Vall, have positioned themselves against this future urbanization. On February 18, a demonstration brought together about 3.000 people to protest the progress of the plan.