Aerial view of the rustic and agricultural land on which all kinds of substandard housing is built. | TEF

The City Council of Santa Eulària has inspected several times the illegal settlement located in Can Rova, in the area of Can Negre, with the aim of reviewing the property and inventorying all the goods inside this space. "Several inspections have been made and we will do as many as necessary; we have to continue with our procedures to be able to document everything", explained the City Council, highlighting that there are families with minors in this illegal settlement. It should be recalled that the town hall has, for several weeks, been trying to access this rustic land converted into an illegal camping of caravans, tents and substandard housing, but being a private property the officials could not access it and have had to wait for the court ruling to enter and start the inspection.

The land is owned by three brothers, but only one of them exploits this terrain by renting small plots of land to dozens of users. The other two brothers are the ones who initiated the procedure authorized by the judge, which has allowed both the City Council and the Balearic Government to inspect the place in recent weeks. In this way, the municipal technicians, accompanied by inspectors of Housing of the Balearic Government, were able to access the area for registration. The City Council also indicated that many of the people who have been living in this settlement for some time are users of the municipal social services.

Furthermore, according to these sources, they are studying what administrative actions to apply within their competences with the aim of taking action against the person responsible for this rented land and thus put an end to the "urban planning irregularities detected and the risky situations that these people live in, as well as protecting this rustic environment". To this end, they asked the court for authorisation to carry out urgent action within this area to put an end to the "impunity of certain acts". It should be noted that, in the last few days, local police and Guardia Civil officers have also accessed the site, but, according to sources from the Town Hall, they entered the site exercising their "accompanying functions" to the technicians who went there.

The Consell d'Eivissa, the Council of the whole island of Ibiza, will not be inspecting this rustic common land for the time being, because, they said, they only have direct urban planning powers over protected rustic land. "We could assume responsibility for this urban planning qualification if the council did not act and it was a case of illegal construction," the island institution told Periódico de Ibiza y Formentera. Regarding the illegal rental of these plots by the owner, they pointed out that this activity is governed by the legal regime of urban leases. "When an illegal tourist rental is detected in Ibiza, we can open proceedings and impose sanctions as dictated by the Tourist Ordinance, but if they are illegal non-tourist rentals we can't go in because they are governed by the Urban Rentals Law," they expressed, indicating that it is up to the City Council of Santa Eulària to assess whether or not there is an infringement.