The Supreme Court rules on the mandatory reports of the State Administration in the processing of urban development plans that affect the maritime-terrestrial public domain and its protection zones and about the exercise of the autonomous administration’s power to protect urban development legality in the protection easement zone of the maritime-terrestrial public domain.
The Supreme Court has issued two relevant rulings on coastal matters; the first, ruling number 247/2024, of 13 February 2024, related to urban planning, and the second, ruling number 83/20024, of 19 January 2024, related to the exercise of the power to protect urban planning legality.
In the first judgment, the Supreme Court points out that the State is the competent Administration to establish easements and limitations on land bordering the maritime-terrestrial public domain and to specify their content and scope, and that, within the framework of this competence, it imposes standards that urban planning must respect. For this reason, the Supreme Court confirms that the State Administration must issue a mandatory report on the processing of urban planning instruments that have an impact on State competences in coastal matters but concludes that its considerations will only be binding when they refer to the maritime-terrestrial public domain and access and transit easements.
This first ruling also analyses the transitional regime established by the Coastal Law and recalls that it will only affect those situations in which urban development rights have been consolidated prior to the entry into force of the aforementioned law, but not when this consolidation has not taken place, as is the case analysed in which, although the land was classified as urban land prior to the entry into force of the law, no urban development transformation action had been initiated or was in progress.
In the second judgment, the Supreme Court answers a different question regarding the exercise of the power to protect urban planning legality by the regional administration in relation to the works carried out in the protection easement zone of the maritime-terrestrial public domain under the protection of the urban planning licence, but in contravention of the limitations imposed by the coastal legislation in the protection zone.
In this second ruling, the Supreme Court concludes that obtaining the municipal licence allows the acquisition of the right to build that the planning confers on the owners of the land, binding both third parties and public administrations, and that, if the licence in question has not taken into consideration the limitations established by the sectoral coastal legislation, the regional administration can’t order the demolition of the construction without first obtaining the annulment of the aforementioned licence.
