The Island Council take over the former military site known as "sa Coma"
and plan to start a large project here to improve local infrastructure
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| The delegation with head of
government Francesc Antich
(centre) and Island Council
president Xico Tarrss
as they
inspect the site |
This is a historic day." These words uttered
by the president of the Island Council,
Xico Tarres, give some insight into the hopes
and expectations behind this one small signature.
Now that the letter of intent has been
signed, administrative responsibility for the former
"sa Coma" military site has officially been
transferred to the Island Council. The island has
never taken over a site of this size from central
government before. It measures well over half
a million square metres and is covered in buildings,
open spaces and forest.
The cost of taking
over this site with all of its existing facilities
comes to 24.2 million euros, plus another 5.4
million euros for the "es Polvorí" military site in
Santa Gertrudis and three parcels of land in
the "es Soto" district of Ibiza city. The final bill
of sale will require the signature of defence minister
Carme Chacon. "That's just a question of
time," added an Island Council spokesperson.
The best news is that the site purchase won't
cost the taxpayers of Ibiza a single cent. "As a
result of the new statute of autonomy and the
supplementary payments that the Spanish
government will make to the Balearic Islands
in order to improve their infrastructure, the 29.6
million euros will be transferred directly from the
ministry of finance to the ministry of defence,"
explained the president of the Island Council,
visibly delighted.
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The potential of the site opposite the hypermarket
just outside Ibiza town is immense. An expert
commission will decide exactly how it will
be used to benefit the island and its residents
in the long term. "The commission will be set
up soon and will comprise staff from the local
government, the Island Council, the municipal
administrations of Sant Antoni and Santa
Eulària and the Red Cross," said Tarres, after
showing the Balearic head of government
around the site. The aim will be to develop a
detailed land usage plan for "sa Coma". A
spokesperson for the Island Council later confirmed
that, "the process could take between
six and ten months". However, the island representatives
already had a number of concrete
proposals and plans.
According to Xico Tarres, the Island Council's
main aim is to ensure that "sa Coma doesn't
fall into the wrong hands, in other words, that
squatters don't take it over." After all, the former
barracks has around two dozen housing
blocks, office buildings and warehouses.
In future, one of its new functions will be to attract
sports fans - from well beyond the island's
shores. The Island Council is advocating a stateof-
the-art sports centre for local people and
even teams of international professionals. The
centre would include two football pitches and
a covered swimming pool. The Council believes
that this would be the ideal place for professional
clubs from northern Europe to train during
the winter or prepare for the coming season.
However, nothing has been agreed upon to
date and the Island Council's press office describe
the plans as "ideas, nothing else."
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The main site with its two
central buildings, located
on the road from Eivissa
to Sant Antoni, is just a
small part of the property
as a whole.
Click on the image for a larger version |
Tarres is an avid sports fan who never misses a
league match when his team, SE Eivissa-Ibiza, are
playing and he has some pet projects of his own. He
would like to see a new motocross track built here.
This popular sport is a real crowd pleaser, but so far
on Ibiza, little has been done to promote it. There
are very few competitions on offer and training opportunities
are virtually non-existent.
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You can see the
dimensions and some of
the ways the land could be
used in future on the plan.
Click on the image for a larger version |
Although there
are plenty of talented young bikers here, they don't
stand a change against the teams from Mallorca
where there are plenty of tracks to practice on. Tarres
is investing a lot of energy into the project. "We
are involving some of the best professional riders
out there during the planning phase," announced
the president of the Island Council. A draft project
proposal has already been developed. It cites
costs of around 7.3 million euros. "The track could
be a reality in just one year."
The strategic merger of the emergency services
is well past the planning stage. According to
Xico Tarres, "The first people to move into the decommissioned
barracks will be
the fire service, the civil defence
service and the Red Cross." The
112 emergency hotline that the
Balearic government runs on
each of the four inhabited islands
is also set to relocate to "sa
Coma". "This will make it easier
for the different emergency services
to coordinate their efforts,
plus the merger will enable us to
cut costs," said Tarres.
The military site is ideally
suited because of its central location and the
fact that it is right next to the main island motorway.
Another plan is to build Ibiza's new water
desalination plant - which has already been
in the pipeline for several years - on the same
site. According to the Ibiza city administration,
the Island Council and the local government,
an agreement could be reached before the
next election. Critics of the proposal, however,
argue that "sa Coma" is not a suitable location
for the desalination plant because it is located
well above sea level. They believe that the technology
needed to pump sewage up to the site
would be too complex and too risky.
Finally, the response to some questions made
it clear that the spirit of the ministry of defence
- known to be a secretive government sector
- still haunts the site. When IbizaNOW asked for
more information about who used to work at
sa Coma and what they did, the press office in
Madrid never responded.
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