La Viñuela reservoir has doubled since last year. The celebration is premature. This piece examines what that breathing room reveals about which towns are preparing for 2030 and which are hoping for more rain. We cover the towns investing ahead (Marbella, Estepona), the towns in limbo (Mijas, Benalmádena), and the places where "hoping for rain" is the actual infrastructure strategy. Then we look at the knock-on effects when systems strain, and the questions you should ask before committing more deeply to any particular municipality.

I spent three years watching the reservoir levels like a nervous parent checking a baby monitor. 7%. 12%. "Emergency measures activated." Neighbours hauling bottled water.

Now La Viñuela sits at 43% capacity. Double last year. The headlines are celebratory. The politicians are taking credit.

Here's what nobody's saying: that's recovery, not security. One below-average rainfall year puts the entire Axarquía straight back into emergency. The reservoir that supplies much of the region's drinking water and agriculture went from crisis to "fine" because it rained — not because anyone actually solved the structural problem.

But the reservoir number isn't the story.

The story is what different municipalities are doing with this breathing room. Some are investing in infrastructure that will matter in 2030. Others are hoping the rain continues. That divergence tells you more about where to build a life than any property listing.

If you're committing to Costa del Sol for 10-15 years, you're betting on more than weather.

You're betting on whether you can work reliably through storm season, August shutdowns, and tourist chaos in 2030. Whether the healthcare system will be expanding or collapsing when you're 55, 65, or 75. Whether schools are keeping pace with the population or cramming kids into prefabricated classrooms. Whether there are enough good doctors, contractors, lawyers, and gestores — administrative agents — or whether everyone's overwhelmed because the population boomed while capacity didn't.

Water infrastructure is one signal of municipal seriousness. It's the most visible signal right now. It's not the only one.

The desaladora — desalination plant — is no longer a press release. It's operating at full design capacity: 20 hm³/year after €7.5-8 million in rehabilitation, inaugurated July 2025. That covers 15-20% of Costa del Sol Occidental demand and creates hydraulic optionality to support Málaga and Axarquía if the politics align.

Beyond water: Hospital Costa del Sol expansion is 95% complete (€93 million, new surgical block, expanded emergencies). New IES Las Chapas opened for the 2024-25 school year with a capacity of 620 students. The 2026 municipal budget hits €449 million with €69 million in capital investment.

Marbella is behaving like the regional capital it effectively is — securing water, expanding healthcare that serves neighboring towns, and adding school capacity for permanent residents. The risk is that success attracts more development pressure. But the infrastructure is leading, not lagging. Not a bad position to be in.

The tertiary treatment plant now produces 14.3 hm³/year of reclaimed water for agriculture and golf irrigation — the boring infrastructure nobody celebrates, but everyone depends on. A new desalination plant is in permitting: environmental surveys complete, land acquisition underway, €43 million in hydraulic infrastructure budgeted through 2042.

The town center transformation is fundamental. Pedestrianised seafront. New Bulevar San Lorenzo is creating 22,000 m² of walkable space. The "Garden of the Costa del Sol" marketing is backed by actual public realm investment.

The weak spot is healthcare. The CHARE hospital exists but is understaffed — 40 rooms are closed, and unions are complaining about equipment expiring in storage. You still drive to Marbella for serious care until the Junta properly staffs the building they built. Classic Spain: the brick-and-mortar exists; the operational capacity doesn't.

The council passed a motion asking the government to build a desalination plant. They offered land. There's no funding agreement. No work on site. It's a press release masquerading as infrastructure policy.

Meanwhile, the 2025 budget cut investment by 57.7% — about €10 million less than the previous year. And 700 students are attending class in 28 prefabricated classrooms across multiple schools. The Junta keeps promising permanent buildings. Parents keep waiting. In some cases, the prefabs are celebrating their tenth birthday. At what point does "provisional" become "permanent"?

Healthcare in Marbella depends entirely on Hospital Costa del Sol. Primary care exists locally; specialists don't.

Classic commuter-belt governance. Talking about water security without securing funding. Cutting capital investment while relying on urbanisation revenue. Education infrastructure is chasing population growth instead of leading it. Fine for a 3-5 year rental. Questionable as a 15-year base.

Better on water than Mijas. New efficiency ordinance, 440,000 litres reclaimed from pool drainings, regenerated water expanding in Parque de la Paloma. The 2025 budget includes €1 million for the coastal reclaimed water network. Someone is thinking.

But since 2008, the population has grown by 35% while the public school count has stayed flat at 15. Parent associations organised protests in 2024-25 against overcrowding. Labs converted to classrooms. Buildings are deteriorating while the Junta debates funding.

The bottleneck is human infrastructure. Schools are the canary. If the Junta doesn't fund new public schools within a few years, families with options will drift toward better-served municipalities. Which is probably already happening, if estate agents are honest.

In 2022-23, around two-thirds of Periana residents couldn't drink tap water due to turbidity and low levels. Rural areas received piped water for only a few hours daily. The solution wasn't infrastructure. It was emergency trucked water. Then it rained.

The regional desal plant planned for Axarquía is still at anteproyecto — preliminary project — stage. These villages get modest Diputación grants (€160,000 for generic improvements — roughly the cost of resurfacing one street) but nothing approaching structural water security. They depend entirely on La Viñuela, shared treatment at El Trapiche, and wells already showing quality issues.

Not bad governance so much as structural exposure. Small, fiscally weak, and utterly dependent on regional projects they don't control. When problems get solved by luck (rain) and emergency measures, you're in "hoping for rain" territory.

These places can be an extraordinary lifestyle arbitrage today — cheap, beautiful, quiet. The kind of villages that make for great Instagram content and questionable 10-year plans. You're betting that regional engineering catches up before the next multi-year drought. Sometimes long shots pay off.

When infrastructure strains, everything downstream degrades. It happens slowly enough that you don't notice until you're complaining about it at a dinner party.

Service quality drops. The "I can't find a reliable contractor" complaint isn't primarily about Spanish work culture. It's a supply/demand mismatch. Population boomed; service provider capacity didn't. Doctors are overbooked. Lawyers are overwhelmed. Everyone's stretched thin. The reliable ones have six-month waitlists. The available ones are available for a reason.

Social friction rises. Water restrictions, traffic, overcrowded beaches — locals feel it. "They're taking our water" becomes a political narrative. Integration gets harder precisely when systems are strained. The warm welcome cools.

Brain drain accelerates. Young Spanish professionals leave for Madrid and Barcelona. The talent pool shrinks. Schools lose teachers. Clinics lose doctors. The remaining service economy is lower-skilled. The capable 30-year-old who might have become your excellent gestor is now in Madrid, earning more with better career prospects.

Municipal capacity erodes. When budgets cut capital investment to cover current spending, streets go unrepaired, parks overgrow, and enforcement disappears. The slow decay that's invisible year-to-year but obvious decade-to-decade. Ask anyone who's been here since the 90s about how Torremolinos has changed.

This isn't doom. It's differentiation. Some towns are managing these pressures. Others aren't. Knowing which is which is worth something.

If you're working remotely: Your question isn't "can I work from here today?" It's whether the infrastructure supporting your work gets better or worse. Internet, power, airport access, professional services. Track whether your town is investing or deferring. A beautiful home office means nothing if the power cuts out during client calls and it takes three weeks to get an electrician.

If you own property: Beyond resale value, consider quality-of-life trajectory. A €500,000 villa in a town with deteriorating services is less valuable than a €400,000 apartment in a town with improving infrastructure. The numbers on paper matter less than the direction of travel.

If you have kids (or might): School capacity is your canary. If public schools are adding prefabs while private schools add buildings, you're watching slow-motion privatisation. What's your 10-year plan? It’s not if you can absorb €15,000/year in international school fees if the public system doesn't keep up. It’s will the overall community become just those who can afford private, with no true diversity, to keep the town growing?

If you're planning to age here, the Healthcare trajectory is everything. Can you age here safely? The difference between a town with expanding local specialist access and one that requires driving to Málaga for everything serious compounds as mobility declines. What looks fine at 55 might look very different at 75.

Before committing deeper — buying, signing a long-term lease, enrolling kids, or just wondering what the future will bring — learn about, follow, and ask regularly:

Water: Does this municipality have a desal or reuse project with a timeline and a budget? Or a motion passed with no funding? The difference matters more than you'd think.

Schools: What's the situation with prefab classrooms? New school construction in the Junta's plan? Or promises without budgets?

Healthcare: Facilities opening? Or are existing ones understaffed? The CHARE in Estepona looks excellent on paper. In practice, 40 rooms are closed.

Budget: What percentage goes to infrastructure vs marketing? Is investment growing or shrinking? Municipal budgets are public. Someone should be reading them.

Demographics: Are young professionals staying? Or an aging population without service capacity scaling to match?

A town that scores well isn't just a property investment. It's somewhere you can actually build a life. Which, presumably, is why you moved here.

Nobody else is reading municipal budgets and connecting them to whether you can actually build a life somewhere. That's the job.

This is the first in a quarterly series. We'll report on what's built, what's funded, and what's still hoping for rain — then tell you what it means. Not press releases. And ask the tricky question, “What actually happened?”

Reply SERIOUS for the municipal seriousness checklist: the specific questions to ask before signing any long-term agreement, where to find the answers, and how to read them. The due diligence most people skip until they're already committed.

Onwards — A. and the always bright and cheery Waypoint Sur team

With Waypoint Sur, you can always expect plain-English guidance to land, settle, and thrive on the Costa del Sol—work, schools, healthcare, visas, taxes, home, and daily life.  
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