CASA DEL REY GOES TO COURTIf you look along Ronda’s Tajo gorge from the bridge past the Convento de San Domingo two things strike you. First the imposing building that has a privileged position on one of the cornices. The second is that the same building, once an Arab palace dating from the 13 th century, is in an alarming state of disrepair.
The palace is the Casa del Rey Moro. It is now before a judge of the Ronda court who must consider an application for it to be placed on public auction to settle a debt.
The owners of the historic building owe 113,203 euros plus nearly 34,000 euros in interest and costs. The money is owed to a woman and involves a property deal that went wrong. Her lawyers have now petitioned the court to have the palace sold at auction in order to settle the debt.
Apparently litigation has been going on between the two parties for eight years. The woman has now had enough. It is believed the Casa del Rey Moro would fetch three million euros at auction so she is demanding it is sold. This is the second time she has made such a move and legal experts believe on this occasion she could be successful.
However Jochen Knie, who speaks for the owners, denies that the property is facing auction but only that the woman has made an application. He said the matter revolved around not a debt but an obligation to build her a house but as the town hall would not issue a licence it was not possible to carry out.
Back in 2000 the hotel chain Hispano-Alemana presented a project to the town hall to construct a five-star hotel in the Casa del Rey Moro. It would have required an investment of 1,000 million pesetas. Jochen Knie was then the director general of the development company and he requested licences for the works saying once they were granted work would start immediately and be completed with a few years.
The new luxury hotel was to have 38 bedrooms of which 16 were to be suites and the others individual apartments. There would also be a restaurant on the lower floor of the building. The company said it would be taking on 25 staff to offer a high quality service. It would have been the first five-star hotel in Ronda but in the event nothing happened.
The gardens of the house overlook the Tajo. They were designed by one of the most celebrated landscape gardeners, the Frenchman Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier. Below the building is ‘La Mina’ with a stairway of 365 steps excavated in to the heart of the Rock by Muslim slaves. These are open to the public and visited by some 60,000 people a year.
The palace, gardens and ‘La Mina’ are all given cultural interest protection by the regional government. Indeed the Andalucía ministry of culture would be keenly involved in any eventual development of the buildings on the site.
CORK PRODUCERS LOOSE THEIR BOTTLE
The plastic cork is making its inroads in to the Spanish wine producing market and the toll is being felt amongst the cork harvesters of the Serranía de Ronda. The demand for their product has dropped dramatically as Spain follows the example set by the wine makers of California and Australia.
The major part of the cork production in the Serranía comes from plantations owed by the town halls of Ronda, Cortes de la Frontera and Gaucín. So the collapse in the market for these products has led to a fall in the income of the municipalities.
The mayor of Gaucín, Francisco Ruíz, said they had not been able to sell the cork from the 2009 harvest and prospects looked no better for this year. As a result the town hall would be 200,000 euros short in income. For a town hall that is already desperately short of money the collapse is a catastrophe.
Ronda held an auction for its 2009 production last summer but there were no takers. The Catalans and Portuguese who normally snap up the cork stayed away. Whilst the harvest should have fetched 700,000 euros it was finally sold off for 500,000 euros.
The cork gatherers appear to have suffered a double whammy. Not only are the wine producers buying less cork because they’re using plastic instead but the financial crisis has also seen a drop in wine sales.
BAD VINTAGE
The threatened split in the association representing the vineyards and wine makers of the Serranía de Ronda has become a reality. Recently the board resigned over financial arguments. This has led to the formation of the VinoRonda with 17 bodegas and 60 per cent of the wine growers. Meanwhile the asociación de viticultores y bodegueros de la Serranía de Ronda represents remaining members.
ERROR RIDDEN
Ronda’s new local development plan was to have been passed in March but now seems unlikely to be brought before the council for months. One of the main reasons is the draft has been found to be riddled with errors. For example: 83 luxury houses and a hotel planned for La Parchite by several past administrations has been completely left off the document.
ABANDONED SHOWCASE
The spokesperson for Izquierda Unida in Ronda, Rafael Ruiz, has condemned the abandoned state of the interpretation centre for Ronda furniture. The building was constructed with 1.2 million euros of money from the regional government but has never been used and the IU is raising the matter in the Andalucía parliament. It has been suggested that the building becomes a municipal library.
RESIGN! RESIGN!
Partido Andalucista has demanded the resignation of Ronda’s mayor and eight councillors who were elected for the PA but have since joined PSOE and sit as non-aligned. The national committee that decides on such matters has branded them all as political turncoats. The decision has been officially notified to the party. Those who voted PA now have no representation at the town hall.
TARGET HANDICAPPED
The tourist office in Ronda is targeting the handicapped person market. In Europe alone there are four million people with disabilities who regularly travel. They are in the medium to high spending bracket and have a lot of free time to travel. Now the objective is to make Ronda an accessible destination which will require works at historic sites and on the streets.
ORDER! ORDER!
The Convento de Santo Domingo by Ronda’s Tajo bridge became a mock Andalucía parliament last week. Some 150 university students and teaching staff from the region attended the event. They debated a number of important issues as would an elected parliament covering topics from the environment to religious freedom. The objective was to give an insight in to how Andalucían political life operates.
SEWAGE ESCAPE
People living at the base of the Tajo gorge in Ronda have reported that the area has been swamped with sewage waste. The culprit is the pipeline that runs from the town to the treatment plant at La Indiana that has ruptured after a landslide. The residents say they reported the matter to the town hall two weeks ago but nothing has been done.
