Maybe it’s not as famous as The Cíesbut Torralla It is also a unique island. In its own way, of course. More than its fauna and flora, this small insula of the southern coast of Galicia stands out for its legal situation. Although it is connected to Vigo’s coast through a 400 -meter bridge and in theory it must comply The Costas Lawin practice it is an impenetrable urbanization for most vigueses.
At the end of the viaduct there are A garrita with a guard who restricts the passage to the interior of the island. The barrier only rises for the (scarce) residents, their guests and the researchers who work in the Marine Science Station (Ecimat), a space linked to the University of Vigo that premiered in 2006.
Torralla is therefore a city within a city, a private and exclusive village available to its even more exclusive residents, including The business elite local. The country Precise that there are only 149 people censored there, although in good weather the number of residents multiplies.
Two ways to visit her
As access is closed to anyone outside the island, there are only two ways to get an idea of what is inside. One is to cross the bridge and (without crossing the garrita), go down to one of the coves located on both sides of the catwalk, accessible from the 90s Thanks to a Supreme Judgment. The other (more comfortable) is to open Google Maps and notice In view of birds, internal roads, large gardens, chalets and swimming pools that are distributed throughout the island.
Its most characteristic piece (and perhaps controversial) can be observed, however, from a good part of the vigués coast: a tower of 70 meters high and 21 plants Raised between the end of the 60 and the beginning of the 70s, during the boom of the developmentalism. In idealist it is possible to find The announcement of a floor of 120 square meters on the 18th plant sold for 620,000 euros.
Another peculiarity of the island is that in practice it is intended as a Private condominium in which the City of Vigo barely has a presence: the basic services, such as lighting, water supply or maintenance of the vials are assumed by the neighborhood community, Precise The confidential.
That Torralla is today an island of private use, an anomaly of the Galician coast, is greatly explained by Its complex story. Until the second third of the nineteenth century the island belonged to the Church, but after confiscation He went to the Marquis de Valladares. Since then it has changed ownership (in 1884 a prosperous factory came to rise there, Iberian string) until in the mid -60s it ended up under the control of a society, Torralla S.
This episode was key to the future of the insula, which saw how in just a few years the bridge was built that connects it with the coast, the Huge residential tower and the thirty of exclusive chalets that are distributed by its surface, some with gardens and pools that arrive almost to the rocks where the sea breaks.
In its day, the construction of a nine height and 120 meters long for 85 exclusive homes that met the frontal opposition of the city. “It goes against every idea not only landscape, but I am even afraid that the island sinks,” He came to iron In 1975 the then mayor, Joaquín García Picher. After an intense pull and loosen, three years later the Supreme Court proved him right and gave the judicial folder to the megaproject.
Goodbye to privileges?
Torralla has been hoarding for years headlines Because of its peculiar status, but a quick search arrives on Google to verify that its rhythm has increased exponentially in recent months. The reason is simple: if the government Fulfill your wordin not long residents could lose one of the privileges that have been retaining for several decades, being the only ones (except for Ecimat workers) who can enjoy the coast of the island.
In June, during a visit to the neighboring beach of Samil, Minister Sara Aagesen, guaranteed that will defend “he toCceso to the public domain Maritime-terrestrial “in the area.” It has to be for public use and we are working on the definition of the project, we hope to have it just around the summer, “he insisted. Wednesday The confidential revealed That the government is already finalizing the project to achieve it, which in practice would go through lifting the garrita that prevents the passage of non -residents and recovering the public domain strip of the insula.
To understand that effort you have to understand some keys before. The first, the status of the island. What Torralla SA has is a concession, an authorization of almost a century granted in the mid -60s and will not end Until 2064.
In between, in the late 80s, the Government approved the Coastal Lawa regulation that regulates the public use of the coast and the one that right now does not adjust the Galician island. In fact, if the vigueses (and the rest of the visitors) can cross the bridge and sunbathe on the coves of the island located on their margins is not because of the hospitality of the SA, but by a sentence of the 90s that forced him to retract the garrita to the end of the catwalk, allowing his public access.
The Coastal Law however demands something else.
The norm includes a space of “Traffic servitude” that must respect a strip of six meters widean area in which “the construction of any installation is not authorized and should be left permanently expedited for pedestrian public use.” That is what Vigo aspires now with the support of the government: a perimeter walk of more than 1.5 km and at least six meters wide for which residents probably They will have to give land.
With him they would achieve two objectives: to end decades of privileges and erase Torralla of the Very reduced percentage of Spanish coast that still does not respect the demarcation.
Images | Angel (Flickr), Google Earth and Google Maps
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