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Mega Resort Project by the Old Alfamar Hotel Voted Down by the Environmental Impact Evaluation Commission
28 December 2017
The Sunset Albufeira Sport & Health Resort, a tourist project planned for land covering nearly 100 hectares, on the coast of the municipality of Albufeira, near the Rocha Baixinha beach and the area around the hotel Alfamar, was voted down by the Environmental Impact Evaluation Commission. The announcement was made yesterday by the Algarve’s Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR).
The tourism project, which had been submitted for evaluation in the pre-study phase, received an “unfavourable opinion” from the Evaluation Commission. The unfavourable environmental impact statement (EIS) was issued on November 29.
The Evaluation Commission, chaired by the Algarve CCDR, concluded that “with the exception of the consolidated tourist areas of the Alfamar tourist complex, the new project is in conflict with the existing territorial management instruments and are irreparably in conflict with the public interest restrictions of the National Ecological Reserve (REN) and the National Agricultural Reserve (RAN).”
If it were to be completed, the project, which would occupy a total area of 95.27 hectares along the coast of the municipality of Albufeira, would represent a total housing capacity of about 3,500 beds, 2,500 of which already comprise the existing tourist development.
According to the Opinion of the Evaluation Commission, which Sul Informação had access to, the mega-project’s rejection is due to several factors, starting with the fact that it would “be occupying a type of natural landscape from the coastline that is strategic to the image of the region.”
If the project were to go ahead, there would also be “significant losses in the occupation of soils in the Quarteira floodplain, loss of agricultural potential, discontinuity of the floodplain and an increase in land consumption. This is not comprehensible for a project that was originally intended to be sustainable”, the Environmental Impact Study stated.
On the other hand, according to the Evaluation Committee, “the intervention, for all its technical merit, is not compatible with the PROT territorial model, ultimately reducing and permanently changing the existing ecosystems, further artificializing the landscape and silencing the original identity of that landscape, a promontory between the meadow and the sea.”
‘It should be noted that it is difficult to employ a concept of ‘sustainable development’ in this undertaking, even after having introduced environmental sensitivity measures and even some innovative measures in the project, when one considers that it intends to build on agricultural reserves, floodplains, and the last significant green area in the municipality of Albufeira, or when it is intended to vulgarize the last stretch of landscape that still preserves its productive characteristics intact, integrated in the coastal ecological corridor and having continuity with the Sites of Communal Importance of the Barrocal (PROT-Algarve),” the document of the Evaluation Committee read.
In other words, the opinion adds, “this is a project that is sustainable at the level of the concept, employability and importance for the region, but unsustainable regarding its location.”
As for the argument put forward by the proponents of the mega-project that it would benefit economic activity and contribute to blurring the seasonality of the Algarve, the Technical Committee’s Opinion stresses that this could only be accepted if one were to ignore “future negative effects to economic activities such as agriculture, the landscape and nature tourism, and to ignore the possible difficulties that result from the associated risks (e.g. flooding, pressure on the beach/cliffs, and the burden on the local population).
On the other hand, according to the Opinion, ‘since a very significant occupation of the surrounding territory (built-up areas of Vilamoura and Albufeira) with projects of the same nature or similar already exists, and if the construction of others in the vicinity is being contemplated in the short/medium term (Vilamoura Lakes, for example), it does not seem justifiable to increase the number of beds in this area.”
During the public consultation phase of the Environmental Impact Study, there were only three statements made, two by private individuals and one by the environmental association Almargem.
As Sul Informação reported, Almargem advised the CCDRA during the public discussion that “if we exclude the urban tourist areas already built in the Alfamar and adjacent sports facilities, all other undertakings conflict with the instruments of territorial management in force, namely PROTAL, POOC Burgau-Vilamoura, PDM Albufeira, RAN and REN.”
On the other hand, the association noted, “a large part of what remains of the so-called Pinhal do Concelho, which is part of the pine groves on the sandy substrate of the Algarve coastline, would also be affected, a habitat considered as a priority conservation area by European and Portuguese legislation, and which has been systematically fragmented over decades.”
Story: Sul Informação – Elisabete Rodrigues
Original Translation: Richard Turner