Modification of the State Land Law

Modification of the State Land Law: more business, less possibility of appeal and unblocking of urban planning balls

• The new regulatory text aims to put a stop to sentences that declare urban planning null and void due to its illegality.
• It cuts public action, the right of citizens to appeal illegal urban planning.
• Introduces new articles that allow the cancellation of the registration certificate of the right of reversion, aimed especially at unblocking the urban macro-project Operación Chamartín or Madrid Nuevo Norte.
• Ecologistas en Acción describes the initiative as an “unprecedented setback”, both in the urban planning field and in the citizen's right to have urban planning that is respectful of people and the environment.

The Council of Ministers approves the Draft Law that modifies the consolidated text of the Land and Urban Rehabilitation Law, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 7/2015, of October 30. It is not the first time, it was already attempted in 2018 by the Popular Party, in 2021, with José Luis Ábalos being Minister, and in 2022, with Minister Raquel Sánchez.

As in the previous cases, the normative nature of the plans and the profusion of the use of public action are attributed to an alleged problem of legal insecurity and a risk to the general interest, housing policy and even to the environmental Protection. That is to say, the fact that citizens appeal illegal plans to court and that they are therefore annulled is considered an obstacle. It is not taken into account that if there are planning nullities it is because the local and regional administration, firstly, almost systematically ignores the allegations that warn of possible irregularities and, secondly, there is a generalized non-compliance with the principle of legality in the processing. of urban planning instruments.

With this excuse, the draft proposes to modify the regulatory nature of the planning and the effects of its nullity, in such a way that what would currently be a null planning due to the absence of a sectoral report, can be “freed” from that end, contributing it later. . This solution would have a perverse effect that would only benefit the developer and could put the environment, including people's lives, at serious risk (in cases of buildings in high natural risk areas).

Following the argument that the problem is who points out the illegality, not who commits it, the new regulatory text aims to reduce the risk of annulments, reducing the possibility of citizens resorting to the courts. It is what is known as popular action, a right recognized in the current article 4 of the Land Law, and which is inherited from the Franco law of 1956 to “encourage the defense of the urban planning regime, promoting its observance.” Thus, a progressive government intends to leave it a dead letter, both for direct and indirect challenges. It modifies, only for urban planning issues, the status of interested party attributed by the Administrative Procedure Law. It also limits the issues that may be appealed and the period for doing so, limiting the indirect appeal to four years, which currently has no time limit. In the opinion of Ecologistas en Acción, this modification is one of the most serious due to the impact on a consolidated citizen right and its dubious constitutionality.

Finally, the draft presented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda introduces new articles that allow the cancellation of the registration record of the right of reversion, fundamentally in urban expropriations integrated into files of equidistribution of burdens and benefits (reparcellations). This article authorizes that land expropriated for a public and social purpose, which is not incorporated into it due to lack of execution but whose right of reversion is registered in the Property Registry, can be canceled when it passes to a new private property.

This article is written ad hoc to unblock Operation Chamartín or Madrid Nuevo Norte, the largest urban development project in the Spanish State. In this area, a good part of the expropriated land (currently owned by Adif) cannot be transferred to the developer Crea Madrid Nuevo Norte (made up of the financial entity BBVA, the San José construction company and the Merlin Properties socimi) due to registration problems, derived from the reversion rights, still registered, in the name of the original owners of the land.

Ecologists in Action regrets that a progressive government, instead of favoring a change of model in the state urban planning panorama, chooses to shield illegal planning instruments from contentious-administrative resources and perpetuates urban planning as a business and not as a right citizen. The proposed modification will not result in greater legal certainty, but quite the opposite: it will consolidate their eventual illegality, making them virtually unassailable.