wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2007 at 8:27pm:

Now thats very interesting,here i am desperate to extend my small house,by 10 metres,my neighbours have no objections,they all have large houses,500 yards from me is a huge new urbanisation,huge houses two and three storey, yet they say i am rural,with houses all around,(illegal) they are going to urbanise the area,asked when? 2months,2 years,10 years,who knows? was the answer i got. So do i or dont i? Anyway,just what is an urbanisation? My escitura says urban on it,so why cant i extend in keeping with what i have,single storey,rustic style,nothing fancy? There has got to be a uniformity between all local councils,this rules for some and rules for others is still going on,its not right. By the way if someone could explain just what an urbanisation is i would be grateful. Thanks Kenny.

Bear in mind this POUM is for Tortosa only, if you live in another area it won't help you. What we were told is that when an area goes from rural to urban, the area is divided up into zones of 7-8 neighbours referred to as "Poligonos de actuacion" (acting groups if you will). To become an urban area you need sewers, roads, street lights and the cost of installing all these has to be met by the owners and you will have to get agreement from a majority of your Poligono to go ahead. To make things even more complicated, the sewers and other services have to connect into the existing infrastructure so if your ajuntament hasn't extended it to your area or another Poligono is in the way and doesn't want to pay the costs...

In your particular case it sounds like your town's POUM hasn't been approved in which case no one knows what your property will be (rural or urban) until the paperwork is stamped by the Generalitat. That's an educated guess by the way. It could a completely different reason.

An urbanisation is, I believe, an area provided with all the municipal services: roads, sewers, mains electricity, water, phone and depending on size also schools, hospitals...etc

Snowhite