Another of the plans of the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, . This time, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid has declared the “nullity” of part of a special plan that last year – with Vox voting in favor – to transfer 205,000 meters of public land to Atlético de Madrid after an individual filed an appeal against it. Both Madrid City Council, as defendant, and Atlético de Madrid, as co-defendant, have 30 days to file an appeal before the Supreme Court.
The land is the one that surrounds the Metropolitan stadium. Built to host the Olympic Games that ultimately did not arrive, it consisted of three plots and it is precisely in the transfer of one of them where the problems with Justice have arisen. Where the ruins of the aquatic center where the Olympic athletes went to do events such as swimming or water polo are currently located, Enrique Cerezo’s club had planned a hotel and a concert hall and the Almeida City Council had approved the project. According to the ruling, this “represents a radical transformation of the public purpose of the plot, since it enables its use for activities of a lucrative and private nature without memory sufficiently motivating this modification.”
Another of the arguments given by the TSJM to annul the plan is that the City Council omitted the obligation to carry out an environmental impact study. “It should have been subjected to the strategic environmental evaluation in some of the modalities provided for in said application regulations,” explains the judge.
However, it denies that there has been a “diversion of power” on the part of the City Council, as the accusation claimed. “Its purpose is not to satisfy the public interest but rather the private ones, specifically those of the co-defendant Club Atlético de Madrid,” argued the individual who filed the appeal. “This Chamber does not appreciate the existence of sufficient evidence,” the Court responds on that question.
“Exactly what we said was going to happen has happened,” criticizes the socialist councilor, Antonio Giraldo. “This is what happens when urban planning is done a la carte. When the interest is not the general interest, but rather the benefit of certain particular interests,” he adds.
Both the City Council and Atlético de Madrid have two options to carry out the project. The first is to file an appeal before the Supreme Court, but it is not a short path. The High Court will take “at least a year” to accept it, judicial sources explain.
The second option is for Almeida to present a new special plan like the one he brought to Cibeles a year ago and correct those aspects that Justice considers abusive and contrary to the public interest. “This is what happens when urban planning is done à la carte. When the interest is not the general interest, but rather that of benefiting certain particular interests, as in this case is Atlético de Madrid,” he concluded.
