credit crunch
Plans for only 619 new homes in Marbella were approved in 2008
16.01.09 - 14:57 -
RICARDO SORIANO. One of the few construction sites visible today in Marbella town centre. / J-LANZA
Statistics
The old familiar sight of huge cranes dotted along the horizon and billboards announcing more brand new developments is starting to become a thing of the past in Marbella and Estepona. In the place of all the concrete mixers and scaffolding is a sea of ‘for sale’ and ‘for rent’ signs on balconies and in windows. The reason is clear: the credit crunch, with the added complication of the ‘Malaya’ and ‘Astapa’ cases uncovering municipal corruption closely linked to construction. Faith in the industry on the Costa del Sol is not what it used to be.
The latest statistics released by Malaga’s Official School of Architects, where all new projects have to be given a stamp of approval, confirm the effects of the downturn. New projects submitted in 2008 for the municipality of Marbella were down 27 per cent on the previous year, with just 619 properties registered compared with 849. However the 2008 figure is 50 per cent down on 2005.
The fall was even steeper in Estepona; in 2008 plans for just 521 new homes were approved, 65 per cent down on the 1,496 of 2007. In the rest of the province only Mijas, Benalmádena and Torrox suffered a greater fall in numbers of new projects.
Malaya effect
It is interesting to note the changes in new property plans in both Estepona and Marbella over the last four years. In Marbella construction started to die down sooner after the boom of the GIL years, with 3,798 new properties authorised in 2004 dropping to 1,705 in 2005. It was around 2006 that developers moved their attention from a ‘Malaya’-swamped Marbella to neighbouring Estepona, hence the sudden increase in new property plans that year of 2,230 to 5,549. This fell sharply to 1,496 in 2007 and nose-dived again to 521 last year.
On a provincial level the Official School of Architects reveals that the construction of new properties has fallen by more than 50 per cent, from 29,432 in 2007 to 14,304 last year. We have to go back to 1991 to find a similar decline.
Nevertheless these figures could be misleading as the fact that the School of Architects has approved a project does not mean that work has commenced. In fact many of the new schemes stamped by the School could have been put off until a later date.
