Stalled townhouse project in Els Poblets back on site: eighteen homes from 259,000 euros

There has been a crane in Els Poblets for a few months now, at a building where nothing happened for years. The shell is being finished, the development is called Setla Village, there will be eighteen townhouses and the first are on the property portals. For anyone priced out of the Marina Alta this is worth a look: you are a short drive from Dénia at a price per square metre that no longer exists in Jávea. There is one thing you need to check for yourself before signing, and it is in none of the listings.

What has come back to life

The building is on Calle Francesc de Vinatea, almost next to the plaça del Salvador, in a neighbourhood where other townhouses went up in the late 1980s.

For years an unfinished structure stood there: shell complete, nothing else. According to regional outlet La Marina Alta, which broke the story on 11 October, work resumed a few months ago and sales have now started.

The development is called Setla Village. Setla is one of the three hamlets that grew together into Els Poblets, along with Mira-rosa and Miraflor.

Exactly how long it stood idle is not stated. The source says “years” without a number, and we are not filling that in.

What you get, and what that is per square metre

Eighteen townhouses, new build. What the listings say:

Three floors per house.
Two or three bedrooms, depending on type.
109 square metres built.
Closed private garage.
Private patio.
Roof terrace with pre-installation for a jacuzzi and views of the Montgó and the sea.

Prices on Idealista run from 259,000 to 349,000 euros. Those are asking prices from the listings, not figures confirmed by the developer, and they are not the same as what ends up on the deed at the notary.

Work it out and you get 2,376 to 3,202 euros per square metre built. Nobody does that sum for you, and it is exactly the number you need in order to compare.

No pool is mentioned. Neither is a completion date.

Why this is cheaper than Jávea, Moraira and Dénia

This is why the project is worth reporting. The Marina Alta has become unaffordable in two years, and Els Poblets has not yet.

The ranking from expensive to cheap is settled and identical in every source:

Moraira and Xàbia at the top.
Dénia below them.
Els Poblets the cheapest of the four.

Regional daily La Marina reported at the end of August that the four most expensive municipalities in the whole Comunitat Valenciana are Xàbia, Moraira, Dénia and Calp, with prices up about a fifth in a year. In April the same paper quoted agents calling the rise “unsustainable” and comparing it to the pre-crisis bubble. We covered that in our piece on rising coastal property prices.

Els Poblets sits right against Dénia. You are ten minutes from the harbour, fifteen from the Ibiza ferry, and it has its own beach at the Almadrava. What it does not have is the name, and here that is the whole difference.

The price figures that contradict each other

Here we have to be blunt, because we set out to compare and hit a wall.

For the same municipality of Dénia, three sources in the same year give:

Fotocasa: 3,841 euros per square metre
RealAdvisor: 2,996 euros
La Marina, on the first quarter: 2,837 euros

That is over thirty-five per cent spread for one town. For Els Poblets the estimates run from about 2,650 to 3,050, for Xàbia from 3,400 to 4,200, for Moraira from 3,300 to 4,500.

How that happens: Idealista and Fotocasa publish asking prices from their own listings, which sit above what is actually paid. RealAdvisor and Engel & Völkers produce estimates using different methods. And a municipality with both a village centre and an expensive coastal strip has no meaningful average.

So what you do with it: use the ranking, not the amounts. Els Poblets is demonstrably cheaper than Dénia and a good deal cheaper than Xàbia and Moraira. Any precise figure you see quoted is an estimate by somebody with an interest.

The thing that appears in no listing

The building stands right beside the bed of the riu Girona. That is in the La Marina Alta report, and it is in none of the sales listings we saw.

For three hundred and sixty-four days a year that is not a problem. The Girona is then what you see in the photo above: a green ribbon of water between concrete walls, with houses right on it.

And then there is the day it is a problem.

On 12 October 2007, nineteen years ago today to the day, the Girona burst its banks after more than 400 millimetres of rain from the previous day. The regional press counted 1,200 homes and 1,500 cars destroyed. A resident of El Verger died. In Els Poblets, which lies on the river’s floodplain, hundreds of homes were left under mud.

It was not the first time. The same environmental report drawn up by the Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar for the Marina Alta flood plan records an earlier Girona flood in 1919. And that report is blunt about the building itself: construction went ahead on the river’s banks and point bars despite their high flood susceptibility, and it names Beniarbeig and Els Poblets explicitly.

What that means in practice and what to do about it

To head off a misreading: this is not an accusation against this development. Work has resumed, the homes are legally on sale, and building near a river is the rule rather than the exception in this area. The point is that you should know it before you sign, not after.

Four things you can do yourself, all free:

1. Check the PATRICOVA map. That is the Valencian Community’s flood risk plan and it is public. Look up the exact plot, not the village. But note: local residents’ groups have pointed out for years that PATRICOVA maps some risk areas and not others, while long-standing residents know exactly where the water goes. Do not treat a favourable map as a clean bill of health.

2. Ask in the village. Everybody who lived here in 2007 knows how far the water came. That is information held in no register.

3. Arrange your buildings insurance before you take the keys. In Spain the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros compensates extraordinary damage such as floods. But, and this is the whole point: only if you hold a policy in force at the moment of the damage. No policy, no Consorcio. That makes insurance beside a riverbed twice as important as elsewhere.

4. Ask the seller how high the ground floor sits relative to the street and the riverbed, and what happened to this plot in 2007. A straight answer is information. So is an evasive one.

What we do not know

This list belongs here, because it is longer than you would like.

The developer is not named in the report.
The completion date appears nowhere.
The building licence and its status: unknown.
Why it stalled and for exactly how long: not stated. A shell from that era suggests the 2008 crisis, but that is an assumption and not a fact.
Whether the prices hold: they are listing prices.

For a new-build purchase in Spain those are not details. Anyone buying off plan or mid-construction wants to see the aval bancario, the bank guarantee on the deposits, and the building licence. How that whole chain works is in our guide to buying a house in Spain, and without a NIE you will not get as far as the notary anyway.

Els Poblets itself

For those who do not know it: Els Poblets is small, flat and green, wedged between Dénia and the river, with orange groves up to the edge of the village and the Montgó as a backdrop.

It has its own beach, the Almadrava, pebbly with clear water. It has a village centre with a few terraces and a menu del día, not a promenade. It has a large northern European population, as the whole strip does, and it is not deserted in winter.

What it does not have is what Dénia has: the harbour, the ferry, the castle, the market, the restaurants. That is ten minutes by car and it is exactly what you are trading the price difference for. How Dénia’s own new-build market is doing is in our piece on the housing market there.

And on that drive: the road there is the N-332 and the CV roads of the Marina Alta. That is where most of this province’s road deaths happen, not on the motorway.

Frequently asked questions

What is the development called? Setla Village, in Els Poblets.

How many homes? Eighteen townhouses.

What do they cost? According to the Idealista listings, 259,000 to 349,000 euros. Those are asking prices.

How big are they? 109 square metres built, over three floors, with two or three bedrooms.

What is that per square metre? Roughly 2,376 to 3,202 euros, our own calculation.

Is there a garage? Yes, a closed private garage per house.

When will they be finished? That has not been announced.

Who is the developer? Not named in the reporting.

Where exactly is it? On Calle Francesc de Vinatea, next to the plaça del Salvador, by the bed of the riu Girona.

Is that a flood zone? Els Poblets lies on the Girona’s floodplain and was flooded in 2007. Whether this exact plot is at risk is something to check on the PATRICOVA map and with the town hall.

Does my insurance cover flood damage? The Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros compensates extraordinary flood damage, but only if you hold a policy in force.

Is Els Poblets cheaper than Dénia? Yes, in every source. By how much varies widely between them.

About the authorLeonie

Leonie lives on the Costa Blanca. She writes about daily life on the coast: the markets, the walks and everything you only discover once you actually live here.