The Friday council meeting in Andratx will approve the spending of 4.8 million euros on demolishing the illegal Monport apartments. The councillor for urban planning, Ángel Hoyos, says that this will represent the removal of "a symbol of urban corruption that had occurred in the municipality for years".
The complex of luxury apartments consists of 29 buildings. These are on protected land. In 2004, the town hall administration approved the project, arguing that this was urban land. Various parties at the town hall expressed their opposition, pointing out that the land had been given protected status in 1991. The mayor at the time was Eugenio Hidalgo of the Partido Popular. In November 2006, he was arrested for corruption and later sent to prison.
The building of the apartments was stopped in 2007; 80% of the work had been carried out. After years of legal dispute, the Balearic High Court ordered the demolition in 2020. Hoyos adds that "we unfortunately have to use town hall budget surplus to pay for demolition and compensation that resulted from the corruption in our municipality".
The town hall has already had to pay 14 million euros in compensation to the developer and the owners of the Monport apartments.