Álava declares the General Plan of Baños de Ebro enforceable

The Provincial Council of Álava has declared the General Urban Development Plan of Baños de Ebro enforceable through Provincial Order 464/2026, of October 1, published in the Official Gazette of the Historical Territory of Álava (BOTHA) on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, number 115. The resolution considers the conditions imposed by Provincial Order 204/2026, of April 16, on the final approval of the file to be fulfilled and orders its deposit and publication. This closes the processing of the municipality’s urban planning and enables its entry into force.

Provincial Order 204/2026 definitively approved the file with conditions and, considering that these conditions were not substantial, established that once corrected, the file should be submitted to the provincial council without undergoing a new public information process, in order to declare its enforceability and proceed with its processing and publication. On September 10, 2026, the consolidated text document that forms part of the file was entered into the council’s registry. The resolution is signed by the Deputy for Territorial Balance and Territorial Planning, Laura Pérez Borinaga, under Provincial Decree 152/2023, of June 30, which determines the departments of the Provincial Council of Álava for the 2023-2027 legislature.

The final approval was recorded in the administrative registry of urban planning of Álava on October 1, 2026, under registration number 2026/9. The BOTHA publishes the resolution along with the urban regulations and the environmental summary of the Plan, a set of 372 pages.

A contained urban model, without new developable land

The Plan revises the Subsidiary Norms that the municipality had been applying since 2004 and adapts them to Law 2/2006, of June 30, on Land and Urbanism of the Basque Country and to the territorial planning approved in the last two decades. Baños de Ebro occupies 951 hectares at the southern end of Rioja Alavesa, has a single population center and has around 310 inhabitants; vineyards occupy nearly 75% of the cultivated area.

Compared to the 2004 Norms, which classified residential and industrial developable land that was never developed, the new Plan does not classify any developable land and concentrates growth within the center. The key figures are:

• 24 new homes, in line with the maximum quantification of the Territorial Planning Guidelines.
• Ten planning areas and thirteen small-scale integrated actions.
• Six new homes built in the last decade, a figure that prompted the change in direction.
• Fourteen registered wineries, with winery use compatible throughout the urban land and a new industrial area to the north of the center.

Environmental and heritage conditions

The Plan incorporates the determinations of the strategic environmental statement, formulated by Foral Order 133/2025, of May 6, and the binding conditions of the Territorial Planning Commission of the Basque Country. Among the concrete decisions are the declassification of the residential developable sector SUR-1, to the southwest of the center, and the reduction of economic activity lands closest to the Ebro River.

• The Ebro River SAC (ES2110008), declared by Decree 35/2015, of March 17, is protected as an overlapping constraint of protected natural spaces.
• The outstanding landscape of La Pobeda and the wetlands of the Las Mugas and El Portillo ponds are included as green infrastructure constraints.
• The hydraulic studies of the Herrera River and the Salado stream are incorporated, with flood lines for 10, 100, and 500 years.
• The protection regulations catalog the municipality’s cultural assets, including the winery-cellar complexes of Rioja Alavesa.

Deadlines and appeal process

The resolution concludes the administrative process. A contentious-administrative appeal may be filed directly against it within two months starting from the day following its publication or notification, before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country.

The General Plan shall apply to the entire municipal area from its entry into force, and its validity shall be maintained indefinitely unless revised, without prejudice to any eventual modifications.

The completion of the process provides Baños de Ebro with an updated urban planning instrument after more than two decades of validity of the Subsidiary Norms, with a growth model adjusted to its real demand and with the protection of the vineyards, the Ebro River, and the wine heritage as the axes of planning.

Source: Official Gazette of the Historical Territory of Álava (BOTHA), no. 115, of October 7, 2026, section I, page 1 (official reference: 2026-02839).