Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) will transfer a package of amendments to the Canarian parliamentary groups to prevent "the public control of land use from being put at risk" in the islands after the Decree-Law 3/2025 came into force last April, for streamlining the processing of urban planning licenses and promoting the construction of housing.
The union will carry out this action because said regulation is now being processed as a bill to allow the presentation of amendments and modify, in this way, the precepts under discussion in view of the objections made by the Canary Islands Advisory Council and by the legal services of the autonomous community, as well as by the social and professional unease generated, it indicated this Monday in a statement.
According to the Federation of Services to Citizenship of CCOO, the most worrying thing about the project is the creation of the so-called 'technical compliance reports' since they can be issued by private entities, professional associations or personalized own means, replacing municipal technical reports "even when public powers linked to urban planning legality are at stake".
In addition, these reports "would not require verification or ratification by municipal technical personnel and would displace the mandatory nature of the technical report from the Administration."
"Commodification" of urban planning and "subordination" of the general interest to "private logics"
In his opinion, this path "would facilitate an escape from Administrative Law, in terms used by the Supreme Court, commodifying urban planning and subordinating the general interest to private logics", and "would degrade the quality of public control over land use" in a territory subject to high urban pressure such as the Canary Islands.
FSC-CCOO has warned that the current wording of this regulation would be applicable to any construction that is planned in the Canary Islands, which could open the door to large-scale actions, such as commercial or leisure facilities, "which have nothing to do with access to housing, and even less with public and affordable housing".
For the union, before "speeding up at any price" it is necessary to "preserve the general interest".
And, for this reason, it has stressed that the solution to license delays involves reinforcing staff and coordination between administrations.
Likewise, the union has defended that the law does not automatically impose on the City Councils the obligation to accept external technical reports and that an express and explicit pronouncement by the municipal Plenary is required for the acceptance of this way of proceeding in the processing of licenses, thus guaranteeing the autonomy of the municipalities and their capacity for self-organization.
The amendments of FSC-CCOO "propose solutions from the public sector", the union indicated in the note, pointing out among its proposals real inter-administrative collaboration, the promotion of urban planning associations and consortia and the requirement of ratification by the municipal technical services of any external report, "to ensure objectivity, impartiality and defense of the general interest".
FSC-CCOO Canarias will request meetings with the parliamentary groups to explain the details of these proposals and trusts that Parliament will incorporate the necessary amendments "to ensure that any improvement in urban planning processing is done by reinforcing the public sector, never emptying it of its substantive powers or undermining democratic guarantees".
