A golf course, 300 tourist beds, 1,600 beds spread across chalets, bungalows, and other residential uses, in addition to a health area were planned in the area of Playa Quemada (Yaiza), a small coastal town located between Puerto Calero and Playa Blanca that has been trying for years to avoid overcrowding and tourist developmentThis plan, which was created under the name of Partial Plan of Costa Playa Quemada, was promoted by the company Prosolmar S.A, approved in 1993 and published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands in January 1994. However, it was never executed. The delay in the promotion of the plan allowed the procedure to be considered expired and the land to be reclassified as rustic. However, the company has fought for years in the courts to achieve that the land recovered the consideration of urban. Now a Court of Instruction of Arrecife will put up for auction ten properties from this partial plan, with a surface area of more than 316,500 square meters
Upon finding discrepancies in the land category, as this outlet has learned, a Court sent an official letter to the Cabildo of Lanzarote in 2023 to certify whether these properties were rural or developable. The economic difference between one category of land and another is palpable. A 2022 appraisal showed that the land, considered entirely rural, was worth around four million euros. In contrast, with the developable category, a 2016 appraisal increased the value of the developer's urbanization rights to 25.3 million euros.
For the moment, the judicial resolutions have endorsed that the lands are rustic and of protection. However, the debate of this old ghost was revived with the fall of the General Planning Plan of Yaiza of 2014, which included that the land of the Partial Plan of Costa Playa Quemada was not suitable for building. After this past 2025 the Supreme Court annulled in its entirety the General Plan of Yaiza, the fear arises that its annulment could be used by those who acquire the land to try to fight for the reclassification of the land.
According to what the Court's Communication Office has confirmed to La Voz, it is still unknown when the exact date of this auction will be, how much it will cost, nor if it is contemplated as rustic or developable land, something that an expert will have to determine
A judicial ruling by the TSJC upholds that the lands are rustic
Despite the fall of the General Plan of Yaiza, the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands ruled in 2018 that the developer exceeded the nine years that the law granted it to execute the Partial Plan Costa Playa Quemada without carrying out the works. The company had until December 2002 to execute it, but it did notExpert sources consulted by this media outlet, state that promoters not only have rights over the territory to develop, but they must also fulfill certain duties, among which are the execution deadlines. The High Court of Justice of Catalonia concluded then that the classification of the lands as territorial protection land and as rustic land contemplated by the General Urban Planning Plan of Yaiza was "correct". For this, it did not rely on this plan, now overturned by the courts, but rather on the Law of Guidelines for Territorial and Tourism Planning in the Canary Islands, from the year 2003, which supported that partial plans that had not been developed were deprived of effectiveness and that the lands could be classified as rustic.In its legal battle, the company Prosolmar SA had the defense of the convicted lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero, who must serve ten years in prison for another legal case, awaiting the resolution of appeals filed before the Supreme Court.The loss of urban development rights over this plot is also based on Law 6/2001. In 2001, the Canary Islands approved the Law of Urgent Measures in Matters of Territorial Planning and Tourism, popularly known as the Moratorium Law, which extinguished those partial plans for tourist purposes that had been definitively approved before 1995.
It should be recalled that in November 1998, the Cabildo of Lanzarote, under the presidency of Enrique Pérez Parrilla, agreed to a tourist moratorium on hotel licenses and decreed the temporary suspension of new urban planning licenses in tourist locations in order to review the island's planning. Among them, that of Playa Quemada.
On the other hand, the Directorate General of Coasts determined last year that the servitude of this Partial Plan was one hundred meters meters, as it had not been urbanized and was subsequent to the Coastal Law
