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San Javier Town Council has approved a one-year moratorium on new land subdivision and building permits in La Manga, marking the beginning of what the local government hopes will be a permanent shift in the way the iconic 15km strip is developed.

 

The freeze applies to new permits only and won't affect developments already under construction, but it's a significant move given that 504 new homes were approved in 2024 alone, taking advantage of a temporary window created by the end of the moratorium on the Mar Menor Protection Law.

 

According to Councillor for Urban Planning Antonio Martínez Torrecillas, the one-year suspension is the maximum period permitted under regional Land Law and is the first step towards modifying Subsidiary Regulation 79, which would permanently prohibit collective residential use on undeveloped land along La Manga's stretch within the San Javier municipality.

 

The goal, according to Mayor José Miguel Luengo, is to free up around 336,000 square metres for hotels and tourist apartments, while scrapping plans that would have allowed roughly a thousand more high-rise apartments to be built, reducing residential building area by 100,000 square metres in the process.

 

The road to making that change permanent won't be quick. The draft modification has to go to the General Directorate of the Environment, which will open a public consultation period running alongside the council's own.

 

If the administrative process drags on beyond the one-year moratorium, Mr Martínez confirmed the council is prepared to extend it.

 

"We will approve another one-year suspension, as it can be extended for up to two years," he said.

 

The councillor also acknowledged that the planning legacy of previous years has created problems that won't be easy to unpick.

 

"Reversing the pronounced seasonality generated by the previous planning is very complicated," he told the plenary session, adding that the reason the change hadn't been made sooner was that "the appropriate legal conditions now exist to propose a change in the urban planning model."

 

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