'Costas is taking my house on the sea, my garden and my life'

On Tuesday, November 7, 2023, Genevieve Shish owns a townhouse on the front line of Les Deves Beach in Denia. Her mother bought it half a century ago. Back then it was more than 60 meters to the shore and many dunes, but in recent years that distance has been reduced to a minimum and increased during the current regeneration. This beloved Genevieve house will soon cease to be her property because of the new boundaries that have been placed on the north coast of the town. She is very angry about this, "The coast is taking away my house by the sea, my garden and my life." Her home is in one of the two current boundaries in Denia.

More than 3,600 properties on the coast of the capital Marina Alta will be affected in some way, of which more than a hundred will automatically lose''s title and will become owners of the right to occupy and use public sea and land areas for 30 years. In this most extreme case is Genevieve Shish, who does not understand "how the Coast can confiscate my house and not compensate me." She regrets that this decision of the central government will turn her into a kind of "legal illegal" of a property that has always had all the necessary permits. She, along with other residents of Les Deves, has been fighting for years to demand the restoration of the beach, which should have been done 15 years ago but was delayed until this year 2023, which is almost ending. Now that she would finally be able to enjoy the sea without fear of the damage that storms used to cause''The situation is Sebastian Alcaraz, who has a restaurant also on the first line of Les Deves.

Paco Garcia owns a house on the front line of Almadrava beach in Denia. He is very clear that the ministry, through the events of Tuesday, "wants to regain what they lost - public property - and they are doing it at the expense of our property." When he bought his property, "everything was legal," so he doesn't understand this recent change. "When they touch yours, you have to protect it", so he demands that they be subject to the 1977 boundaries, "like almost all of Spain and Les Rotes, on the south coast of Denia".

Last Saturday, hundreds of people joined a demonstration through the city center to protest the borders. On Tuesday, many people,''called Coastal will see how it will affect their property.