The Junta de Andalucía has set the first conditions for the development project of a large sports, tourist and leisure centre on land located just above the aquifer that supplies the inhabitants of Coín (Málaga, 25,023 inhabitants) and its famous orchards. The project consists of building a “High Performance Centre in Extreme Sports and e-sports” for the practice of wakeboarding, kitesurfing, skateboarding, motocross, buggying, rafting, abseiling, climbing or base jumping, and surrounding it with 510 independent tourist residences, leisure and entertainment facilities. In total, it would occupy almost 1.3 million square metres and the housing would extend over approximately 60,000 square metres.
There are still years to go before this happens, if it happens at all, but the Andalusian government, which declared it of “strategic interest” to give it priority and speed up its processing, has just set some limits: for example, “not to increase the pressures detected” on the aquifer and to map the area correctly to take into account all the rivers and bodies of water that could be affected, according to the “scope document of the strategic environmental study” of urban innovation, to which this media has had access. This is the document that delimits the environmental study that the developer must present to the regional administration.
The developer says it is satisfied with this preliminary assessment. “No incompatibility of the project with the chosen location has been identified and no substantial modification is proposed to adapt it to the land,” they emphasize.
The project, called “Transcendence”, is opposed by a significant part of Coina society due to its potential impact on the environment and, in particular, on the aquifer. Others, with the support of the promoter, have formed a platform in favor that defends the generation of wealth that the project would bring.
Water is the main concern of neighbors, irrigator communities, associations and political parties, who fear the potential impact on the quantity and quality of water stored in the Sierra Blanca aquifer, which they consider increasingly depleted. The water from the Náissán spring, once so abundant, has long since stopped flowing. The transcendence would be precisely in the aquifer’s watershed, which extends over a particularly porous surface of about 30 square kilometers.
A discussed project
Transcendence has generated a notable dust storm in this municipality since this media revealed the project of Nature Call, SL (a family holding company of the children of Mariola Martínez-Bordiú, second granddaughter of Francisco Franco) to build on the surface of the aquifer. It is private and developable land, but historically intended for community use. Neighborhood pressure had already managed to cancel an urban development project on the same plot 15 years ago.
The developers insist that their project is environmentally friendly and improves the prospects of this place, reducing the planned buildable area and moving towards sustainable materials, techniques and uses. The scope document is the first technical positioning of the Junta de Andalucía since the Government Council decided in July 2023 to classify this project as “of strategic interest” for Andalusia.
Last year, the Round Table on Water was reactivated, which led a rejection demonstration last February with about 5,000 participants. A monographic plenary session was also held in which all parties opposed the project, including the PP, which governs. However, since then, the council has clarified its position.
For its part, during this period, the developer sponsored meetings with political parties, associations, neighbors and the media to sell the benefits of its project, valued by Nature Call at 267 million euros. It was the friendly face. But they also issued a warning without much dissimulation: they will attack the municipality to demand compensation of one million dollars if the land is reclassified as undevelopable and used for a peri-urban park, as some political groups in the City Council claim and the Provincial Council has requested Malaga.
“Do not increase the pressures detected on the water table”
The City Council is already approving an innovation in the PGOU Partial Plan that allows the project to be included in the town planning of the municipality. Currently, the Partial Plan for the Los Llanos de la Sierra sector envisages residential use in large blocks surrounded by two golf courses; For Transcendence to become a reality, it must include a sports complex and housing for tourist use. The perimeter document is included in this process, which is collecting the first observations of the different departments that may have something to say.
Thus, the Public Domain Hydraulics and Water Quality Service considers the hydrographic plan provided by the developer to be insufficient and asks him to integrate all the channels of the rivers and streams in the area. It also recalls that the Transcendence would have a total impact on the aquifer of the “Sierra Blanca”, and that the general objective of the Water Law is “to restore the deterioration of the water bodies”, which is why it emphasizes (literally) that it is “necessary not to increase the pressures detected” on the water table.
The head of the department assures that the water table is in “good condition”. This will probably be one of the central issues of the future environmental impact assessment. The developer has a report in which he assures that the aquifer has a surplus of 62 liters per second that flows into the Guadalhorce basin, and calculates that Transcendence would have an average consumption of 4.7 liters per second, with peaks of 7.22. On the contrary, the Round Table of Water relies on the work carried out in 1997 by Bartolomé Andreu, a hydrogeologist at the University of Malaga, who warned that the aquifer was emptying at a rapid rate, which would have worsened with the rise of tropical waters, a 40% increase in population and drought. The source dried up years ago and farmers and their neighbors have suffered restrictions in recent months.
The guidance document also recalls that the planned urban development must have sufficient water to meet new demands and asks the developer to clarify what water resources it intends to have, not only for the activities and infrastructure it plans in the “water world” (one of the sectors of the sports centre), but also for supply, tourist use or irrigation of gardens.
The technicians criticize the developers for their “lack of precision”: “Data must be provided such as the water consumption that the action will entail in its three aspects, that is, before, during and after the execution of the works.” “The coordinates of the well are not known, and if it is already used for other purposes, it is not known whether the installation is authorized or under what concession title, which is why it is difficult to assess its environmental impact,” they warn.
Proximity to the Sierra de las Nieves National Park
In addition to the water issue, the scope document recalls the existence of two threatened and interesting species of flora, Toadflax And Atlantic Oprysan orchid with very few census specimens that could be affected by any alteration of the natural environment. The Office technicians do not believe that the corrective measures proposed by the developer, “concerning the raising of the building and the green roofs”, guarantee the maintenance and conservation of the species, and warn that relocation will be the “last resort” and “as long as there is no other alternative.
Although the area is not part of the Natura 2000 network or the Network of Protected Natural Areas of Andalusia, the Service of Protected Natural Areas requests that the ecological connectivity of the protected natural areas of Andalusia, close to the field of action, be promoted. such as the Sierra de las Nieves National Park, knowing that it is a complex that includes activities that “could have significant environmental impacts on the surrounding natural environment”, such as trial circuits, motocross, karting, swimming pools, bravas water channels, artificial wave, beach…
The purpose of the specifications is to delimit the scope, level of detail and degree of specification of the strategic environmental study that the promoter must present before the realization of this urban innovation. This is a first approach, identifying the potential environmental impacts on air quality, soils and their geology/geomorphology, hydrology, flora, fauna, socio-economic environments and landscape, in addition to its climatic impact.
The Air Quality Department, the Public Domain Hydraulics and Water Quality Department, the Natural Environment Management Department, the Waste and Soil Quality Department, the Livestock Routes Department, the Protected Natural Areas Department and the Cultural Heritage Department presented their observations on this first opportunity.
After the scope document, the municipality must now present its innovation to the Partial Plan, including the strategic environmental study prepared by the developer, within a period that cannot exceed fifteen months. The two documents must be submitted to the public for information for a month and a half, before obtaining, if necessary, the Strategic Environmental Declaration. The deadlines considerably distance the developers’ forecasts, who were planning to start work before the end of 2025.
