The "sinvivir" of the Don Pepe: 300 residents evicted in Ibiza from their apartments without a license

It smells of sea salt and fabric softener.

The sheets on the clotheslines adorn the deteriorated facade of the Don Pepe apartments, in Ibiza.

They are two twin blocks with 300 neighbors, located in the Ses Salines natural park, in the south of the island, built in the sixties, and from which many families have already been evicted: as they are out of order, they cannot be fixed its many damages, and in one of them there is a risk of collapse.

"One does not have a license and the other has one more floor than what is stated in the project," explains Ángel Luis Guerrero, mayor of Sant Josep de Sa Talaia.

Neighbors say they bought their homes without knowing it.

While the Balearic administrations decide to grant millions of dollars to rehouse them, many residents have been left homeless.

Like Rosario Garcia, 42,

who tries to hide the tears behind his glasses, when contemplating the home he left last Christmas: “We have had a thousand hardships.

It is a non-living”.

After two years of struggle, the Balearic Government will demolish the buildings and build new homes in another place to house the hundred affected families, since they are considered buyers in good faith, having acquired their flats without knowing that they did not comply with the regulations.

In addition, the Executive of the socialist Francina Armengol announced last month a new line of rental aid of 874,000 euros, which together with those already decided by the Sant Josep de Sa Talaia City Council and the Consell de Ibiza add up to two million euros.

They are patches for the open wounds in the lives of those affected by the illegalities of these constructions rooted in this natural enclave, where the noise of the turbines of the planes landing at the airport mixes with that of the waves of the sea on the beach of Es Codolar,

For years, the apartments were sold and rented without problems.

Nobody warned the families that were arriving that the houses were out of order, neither when formalizing the deed, nor when registering the house in the registry.

The control networks failed, say those affected, and the residents were immersed in a legal disaster that has changed their lives.

"It was a shock to discover it," says one of them.

Because nobody reviewed the files until in 2014 AENA requested a permit to soundproof the windows to reverse the sound footprint: "Then the permit is granted, but it is noted that the buildings are out of order," summarizes the mayor.

“Before this there is no record of anything,” he admits.

In May 2020, a ceiling vault fell on one of the floors, and the neighbors were evicted for safety.

One of the security notices posted throughout the fence that surrounds block A of the Don Pepe condominiums. FRANCISCO UBILLA

Rosario García, who lived there with her two children for more than 20 years, remembers her eviction with anguish: “They blocked the road and 10 Municipal Police patrols came, as if we were drug traffickers.

I couldn't believe it."

Now, her neighbor works in a nightclub and also as a cleaner to be able to pay at the same time the 10-year mortgage she has left on her Don Pepe house and the rent for her new apartment: 1,700 euros a month in total.

"I work day and night to be able to pay double everything," she complains, while she tries to calm her anxiety with a cigarette.

“How thin you are!

Disgust, right?"

She is greeted by Romanian Sorina Urian Zdroba, 42, who lives with her husband and her five-year-old daughter in the block that is still inhabited.

“The Don Pepe diet.

I have lost 17 kilos”, she replies.

Four months after buying the house came the first eviction, which predicted his departure date.

On the table in the living room with views of the sea, he keeps the book

by Bernardo Stamateas.

The tranquility that emanates from the landscape from your window contrasts with a state of mind that neither the sea nor the chirping of the sparrows can alleviate.

“I have dreamed many times that the roof was falling.

It's been two years without sleep and with continuous anxiety”, laments the neighbor.

Zorina Urian Zdroba sunbathes in front of the window of the living room of her apartment, while a plane lands at the Ibiza airport, very close to the Don Pepe community.

FRANCISCO UBILLA

The owners are considered bona fide third parties for having bought the houses without anyone warning them of the illegality of some buildings built in the 1960s by a pilots' cooperative.

The blocks, with five floors without a lift, with narrow stairs and old tiles, are divided into 60-square-meter apartments with two or three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room.

Many of them have been renovated inside.

The buildings were erected before the salobral was declared a protected natural park, in 2001. A reserve that covers 3,000 land hectares and 14,000 sea hectares that joins the Pitiusas, from the south of Ibiza and the north of Formentera, with great environmental value for the posidonia oceanica meadows.

Josep Marí i Ribas, Minister of Mobility and Housing of the Balearic Islands, explains the uniqueness of the buildings: “Since they are inside a natural park, it is not possible to legalize them because residential use is prohibited.

Therefore, they will be relocated with a swap.

We build the new houses and in return we recover the environmental value of the area”.

María Torres, 78, on the stairs of block B that lead to her flat.

FRANCISCO UBILLA

María Torres, 78, remembers what she thought when she bought her house: “This is a bargain!”

She paid 10 million pesetas (60,100 euros) for the house where she raised two of her six children.

“I came here with my husband, may he rest in peace, because I like the countryside and I am very peasant”,

admits between the foliage of pines and the green esplanade that surrounds the buildings.

After more than 20 years, she regrets having to leave.

“When will it be?” she says, clutching her chest as she waits for the eviction notice.

The same thought goes through the head of Ricardo Méndez, 33 years old.

This man from Extremadura pays 650 euros a month for a flat with sea views.

“I will never find a rental at this price in Ibiza”, he complains about the incessant rise in prices on the island.

“The savings that he had blew up with the pandemic,” says this event planner.

And the stability he had found when he moved there was cut short in just a few months: "I've been in a depression and I'm still taking anxiolytics," he explains, saddened.

"I'm not saying they have to give me a house like the owners, but they do give me an alternative."

View of Don Pepe from the back of the blocks, which leads to Es Codolar beach, in Ibiza.FRANCISCO UBILLA

In April, a technical commission was created for the relocation of the owners in which the Balearic Government, the Consell de Ibiza and the Sant Josep City Council participate.

Waiting to find a plot for the new homes, the spirit of the neighbors resembles the state of this community after two years of misfortune.

"The memories I have here are not the same as seeing it now," laments, afflicted, the Uruguayan Javier Gallizia, 33, who returns for the first time after his eviction.

Dozens of props in the sealed structure, weeds in the gardens, holes in the stone path and an abandoned playground are the traces of a neighborhood that will disappear.

There are no longer children running around, nor adults taking

in the patio.

But the noise of the turbines of the planes that pass by the buildings persists: "Now I miss it," confesses Rosario García wistfully as she says goodbye.

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