Date Published: 03/12/2024

Blame is misdirected as crackdown begins on rural Valencia properties following floods

Urban flooding needs an urban solution, not scapegoating, say experts

by John Michael Kirby, Technical Architect and Building Engineer

“Those that do not learn from history condemned to repeat it.” So said George Santayana. I feel compelled to write a second article on the subject of the Valencia floods as I am very concerned that illegal builds in the countryside, in many areas now either mostly or entirely owned by expats, are being be viewed as an easy almost victimless group to crack down on. After all these people broke the law, right?

We know that isn’t true. Expats didn’t build these properties, they didn’t finance them and they didn’t fail to act at the time they were built to stop them being built. They simply bought them, believing them to be legal, with their life savings and continue to maintain them with their fixed incomes from abroad.

We will soon see in detail how a move in this direction could spell political disaster for a generation for any party that proposes it. It would only take 9% of the resident expat population to vote strategically to eliminate from the political landscape either of the main parties in the province of Alicante.

In areas such as La Marina Alta, where the expat population is over 40% on average, a third of which are Brits, just 1 in 3 Brits are required to vote and everyone else could stay at home to produce the same effect, political annihilation.

Clearly there is political blame to be apportioned for the flooding but it should be apportioned in proportion to the time they were in control and did nothing to avoid a known risk dating all the way back to 1975, which is when we can stop blaming Franco (who incidentally is the one guy we can’t blame as he did take action which avoided the loss of life and property thanks to the redirection of the riverbed).

Most importantly, having been a municipal technician here, I can tell you politicians make suggestions but technicians convert those suggestions into a reality or they advise against them. No matter how much a politician of any stripe wanted it to happen, none of the hundreds of thousands houses and businesses built of floodable areas could have been built without getting the project signed off by a municipal technician.

You might think that Municipal Technicians have additional training – a post-graduate Master’s qualification for example – but they do not. You may think that there is on-the-job training for the tasks of a Municipal Technician or that they are given an introduction to the institutions such as AVPT, IVE, the water board or any of the sectorial bodies (roads, mines, rivers...) on which their work must depend. There is none.

This, and not the fact that the regional president was at a lunch date at the time of the floods, has been the reason this very predictable flooding has caused such extensive damage.

In fact, this is just how predictable the floods were: flooding in Valencia has happened on a historically regular basis 1321, 1328, 1340, 1358, 1406, 1427, 1475, 1517, 1540, 1581, 1589, 1590, 1610, 1651, 1672, 1731, 1776, 1783, 1845, 1860, 1864, 1870, 1897, 1957 and now in 2024.

Over many decades a technical green light has been given to potentially, one could say, in the absence of structural measures to mitigate risk, “inevitably” floodable projects. If you are looking for a political scapegoat, you are either accidentally or purposefully missing the point.

All of the previous public administrations since the death of Franco have been aware of the previously mentioned facts. None of them took action to mitigate the risks the flooding posed. I include in that the flood risk assessment named PATRICOVA which, although it began in 2003, did nothing to prevent building licences being given out on floodable areas.

All of the 77,500 houses damaged by the recent floods had planning permission. They were not illegal builds. So, stern action by the Valencian Agency for Territorial Protection (AVPT) to prevent illegal chalets in floodable areas is entirely misdirected. Take a look at the 1956 to 2023 photos of the worst affected areas of Picanya, Paiporta and Massanassa (pictured, above). The fact that this urban sprawl/development was allowed, on a known flood plain, with no measures to mitigate the risks is the reason why 100% of the material damage was done.

We know with absolute mathematical certainty this will happen again and they knew that back in 1957 and 1971 too. On average, it’s happened every 25 years so the next event is quite likely to occur a lot quicker than the 67 years since the 1957 or the 53 years since the 1971 episode, which would have predictably been as damaging had nothing been done to avoid it. The works to redirect the riverbed started in 1964, 7 years after the 1957 event.

Clearly, we know how to avoid the damaging effects of a flood. Valencia city was untouched by the recent floods and that is what the new riverbed was designed to do. To save the city, not the surrounding area.

As a consequence, the good news is it’s unlikely we’ll see a cloning of the current disaster. Funds will be granted, new water courses will be designed and dug. Protections will be erected and dialled into our phones. All of that has to be paid for.

In the province of Alicante of the total 701,305 people employed, exactly 528,546 work in the services sector. That’s 75.36% of all employment in the province. The number of waiters and shop assistants is more than the employment in the industrial, agricultural and the fishing sectors combined. So it’s fair to say that many of the measures taken will be funded directly as a consequence of the tax revenue generated by foreigners through tourism, residential tourism those that buy a property here but are resident elsewhere and expat residents. Remember that 21% of all tourism income in the Valencia region stems from friends and family coming to visit expats.

In conclusion a crackdown on properties owned by foreigners has the potential to be both politically disastrous for those that implement it and economically catastrophic for the entire population. If the expat community gets presented as a straw-man this one has the potential to punch back.

John Kirby is a Technical Architect and Building Engineer (UPV), having won the award for outstanding academic achievement. He is the first foreigner to win that award and the only foreigner to ever be Municipal Technical Architect in Spain and a Judicial Property expert witness in Spain. He is Commisioner for Expatriates of the Valencian government and Ambassador for Spain and Gibraltar for Chartered Association of Building Engineers (UK).

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