The Quinta da Ombria development will begin to be built, after having received the permit for the necessary urbanization works from Loulé City Council, last Friday.
Located in the Morgado da Tôr area, in the parishes of Querença, Tôr and Benafim, this complex provides for the construction of a five-star hotel, three four-star tourist villages, single-family houses and a golf course, and should motivate an investment of around 200 million euros.
The city of Loulé has already granted permits for «most of the infrastructure planned for the Quinta da Ombria development», but the issuance of licenses for the construction of the hotel and the golf club are still pending completion of the respective Environmental Compliance Reports of the Execution Projects (RECAPE), a procedure that is being conducted by the CCDR of the Algarve.
In addition to the Urbanization Works Permit, a Relocation Licensing Permit was also issued and an Urban Development Contract was signed with the representatives of the Quinta da Ombria development, Carmen Santos and Joaquim Meirelles, «which will allow the constitution of independent parcels to carry out the urban planning operations foreseen in the Detailed Plan of the Tourist Development Center of Quinta da Ombria (PPNDTQO)”, according to the City Council of Loulé.
This is a decisive step for the advancement of this project in the field, which had been postponed for many years, since the entire process was, from the beginning, involved in great controversy. At issue, the alleged environmental impact of the undertaking, which led environmental associations to contest it and, in the case of the associations Almargem and Liga para a Protection of Nature, to file a complaint with the European Union.
To try to stop this project, environmentalists defended to the European authorities that the construction of this tourist unit will affect the Querença-Silves aquifer system, the largest in the Algarve and on which the development will be located.
The European Commission's Directorate-General for the Environment ended up shelving the complaints, noting that its Evaluation Committee had already made some recommendations, including the «change in the layout of the golf course» and the presentation «of a management plan for fertilizers, fertilizers and phytopharmaceuticals', which minimized the risk of contamination of the aquifer. The most recent decision, in this regard, was taken in 2011 in relation to an appeal filed by LPN.
In the press release sent to the newsrooms, the Loulé Chamber says that this project "aims to promote a mixed occupation (residential and tourist developments), of low density, preferably polynucleated and favoring high quality, as an option for a higher tourist classification".
«Requalifying the existing rural space, safeguarding natural and landscape values and, on the other hand, combating desertification and the existing asymmetries between the interior and the coast are the main objectives of the Quinta da Ombria project», guaranteed the municipality.
Comments