Maybe it’s not as famous as The Cíes, but Toralla 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 with The Costas Law, in practice it is an impenetrable urbanization for most Vigueses.
At the end of the viaduct, there is 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.
Toralla 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
</div>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 , offering a bird’s-eye view of 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 60s and the beginning of the 70s, during the boom of the developmentalism. In idealist, you can 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: 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 19th century, the island belonged to the Church , but after confiscation, it 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 exclusive chalets that are distributed across its surface, some with gardens and pools that reach almost to the rocks where the sea breaks.
In its day, the construction of a nine-story building and 120 meters long for 85 exclusive homes met frontal opposition from the city. “It goes against every idea not only landscape , but I am even afraid that the island sinks,” he claimed in 1975 the then mayor, Joaquín García Picher. After intense negotiations, three years later the Supreme Court proved him right, granting judicial approval for the megaproject.
Goodbye to Privileges?
</div>Toralla has been making headlines for years due to its peculiar status , but a quick search on Google verifies that the rate of news coverage has increased significantly in recent months. The reason is simple: if the government fulfills its promise, residents could soon lose one of the privileges they have retained for several decades, being the only ones (except for Ecimat workers) allowed to enjoy the coast of the island.
In June, during a visit to the neighboring beach of Samil, Minister Sara Aagesen guaranteed that she would defend ” access to the public domain maritime-terrestrial” in the area. “It has to be for public use,” she insisted, referring to a project expected to be unveiled around summer. Wednesday, The Confidential revealed that the government is already finalizing the project, which would involve lifting the garrita that prevents the passage of non-residents and recovering the public domain strip of the insula.
Understanding this effort requires a grasp of some key issues. Firstly, the status of the island. What Torralla S.A. has is a concession , an authorization lasting nearly a century that was granted in the mid-60s and will not end until 2064.
In between, in the late 80s, the government approved the Coastal Law, which regulates public use of the coast and one that does not currently apply to the Galician island. In fact, if Vigueses (and other visitors) can cross the bridge and sunbathe on the island’s coves , it is not due to the hospitality of Torralla S.A., but because of a ruling from the 90s that forced it to retract the garrita to the end of the catwalk, allowing public access.
The Coastal Law , however, demands something more specific. It includes a “traffic servitude” that requires a strip of six meters wide , an area where “the construction of any installation is not authorized and should be left permanently expedited for pedestrian public use.” That is what Vigo now aspires to achieve with government support: a perimeter walk of more than 1.5 km and at least six meters wide, for which residents might have to yield land.
This proposal would achieve two key objectives: ending decades of privileges and erasing Toralla from the very small fraction of the Spanish coast that still does not uphold the public demarcation.
Images | Angel (Flickr), Google Earth and Google Maps