Malaga ends 'facadism' in protected historic buildings
The city council has approved a preliminary amendment to the general urban plan to prevent interior demolitions in buildings with a lower level of protection
Malaga city council has taken an important step to put an end to 'facadism' - the practice of demolishing the interior of a building, maintaining only the facade and removing "features of great urban and historic interest".
The city council has approved a preliminary amendment to the general urban development plan (PGOU) that concerns buildings at grade two of protection.
The regulation will ban owners from demolishing the entire interior of the building and only keeping the facade. They will have to maintain or reproduce key architectural features: walls, corridors, patios, roofs, staircases, layout, volumes.
With this, "rehabilitation with the possibility of reform and extension" replaces "partial renovation" in the PGOU. The amendment only allows the reform of a protected building "through limited and justified replacements of those features that are structurally unsound or entirely unrelated to the values that warranted its protection".
The city council admits valuable features have been lost
The city council admits that, through 'facadism', important artchitectural features of the city have been lost.
There are still months to go before this regulation comes into force. Once the official provincial gazette publishes it, there will be a period of one year during which no urban development permits may be granted for buildings that added to the protection catalogue under this reform.
These include the barracks in Plaza de Capuchinos (which the Ministry of the Interior intended to demolish to build a police station), the chimney of the former Fiat Lux electricity factory (next to Avenida de la Rosaleda), the Sevillana building on Calle Maestranza, the provincial centre of La Térmica and the Cruz del Humilladero prison.
Opposition parties want even higher levels of protection for some of them, but the governing team has rejected that, arguing that protection has already been strengthened.
Urban planning councillor Carmen Casero has said that these new regulations will enter both the new general plan and the new urban plan for the protection of the historic centre.
