Builders in residents’ garden again
DEVELOPERS planning to build an urbanisation defied a court order and entered the private garden of Orihuela Costa family the Wesenauers with diggers again on Friday, destroying a natural stone wall.
The Austrian family have been battling to save the Finca Langostina in Lomas de Don Juan for over 17 years, since more than 1,900 square metres of their garden was expropriated under the since-repealed LRAU ‘land grab’ law.
Legal challenges and bids to protect the traditional 19th century house are still underway but they have been unable to return from a trip to India for over a year due to Covid-19 restrictions, leaving their property undefended.
Security camera footage from the latest incursion shows people walking around the grounds and tampering with the family’s private property.
Opposition party Cambiemos Orihuela said the town hall confirmed the builders had entered without permission.
Kimberley Wesenauer told Costa Blanca News that the last time the builders entered the grounds, in July 2020, they caused half a million euros worth of damage, and a court hearing against the company about this is scheduled for March 11.
In October the council voted down a proposal by Cambiemos to protect the property as an asset of local relevance (BLR), but heritage councillor Rafael Almagro suggested it could be included in the Town Plan (PGOU) catalogue of protected elements.
A report by ex-municipal architect Emilio Diz also recommended that the ethnological value of the house and other elements in its ground (a well, an oven, stables and the patio) merits protection.
Cambiemos councillor María Sandoval said this protection could arrive too late to stop irreversible damage from being done to one of the last remaining historical buildings in Orihuela Costa.
She insisted it should be preserved so that we can learn from our ancestors that there is a more respectful way of inhabiting land than the predatory urban development that has saturated most of the municipality’s coast with cement.