The Court of First Instance number 5 of Arrecife has summoned the occupants of the concrete skeletons located on plot 214 of the avenues of Las Palmeras and Del Mar in Costa Teguise to appear before the Justice of the Peace Court of Teguise to be informed about the judicial procedure opened against them by the property to evict them from the place and build a luxury hotel.
According to the documentation that La Voz has been able to access, the notified families have until next Friday, March 15, to appear before the Justice of the Peace Court. This summons was given to the families along with two rulings from the Court of March 2024 that urged them to identify themselves before the Court and that were already advanced by this editorial staff. Currently, as confirmed by the Press Office of the Court, the case continues "in the summons phase" so although there is an open procedure against the occupants, there is still no date for the eviction.
The entity Toscolanz SL, dedicated to real estate development and based in Arrecife, requested in 2023 the removal of the families from the property to carry out the luxury hotel complex Body, Mind & Health Hotel. This establishment will be composed of "a careful selection of luxury villas", as reported on the project's website.
Also, in October 2024, the Ministry of Tourism and Employment of the Government of the Canary Islands sealed an agreement without financial contributions with the company Toscolanz SL to "improve the professional qualification" of the employees of the future hotel establishment, as published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (BOC).
According to the public complaint from the PSOE of Lanzarote in November 2024, the Cabildo of Lanzarote granted the license to build this four-star hotel establishment, with 170 lodging units and a total of 407 places.
After almost two decades of inaction to achieve its demolition, this space became a refuge for about a hundred working families drowned by rental prices. "What Social Services tell us is that a small part is in social exclusion and needs help. That is what they tell us and we hope it is the reality", added the mayor of Teguise, Olivia Duque, in her intervention on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero.
The City Council has contacted Social Services of the Cabildo to request collaboration with some families that require help. "There are many who are looking for other places, who have the possibilities to look for another place", continued Duque. Marta (fictitious name), one of the neighbors who lives with her families in the skeletons, narrates that she was about to close a rental contract in recent weeks, but that finally the landlord rented it to another person.
A demolition that was never executed
A Court annulled the license of plot 214 on October 31, 2005. After that, the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands required the council to identify the company responsible for complying with the judicial mandate and demolishing the concrete skeletons built on the plot.
In June 2022, the socialist councilor Jenifer Galán in July 2022 pointed out that "the TSJC asks who is the person responsible for the sentence not having been executed and the City Council responds that it has no idea of that judicial resolution, leaving the prosecutor and Felipe Fernández Camero, the lawyer of the City Council and landlord of Pedro San Ginés, at the mercy of the horses, who, supposedly, would not have transferred to the corporation the result of the judicial procedure or the subsequent requirements".
After decades of inaction by the City Council of Teguise, in November 2022, the then head of Urban Planning of the City Council, Olivia Duque (Coalición Canaria), current mayor of the municipality, reported that the property had refused to comply with the demolition request and that the council would initiate "the pertinent actions to undertake it" on its own. This decision was carried out after the Court threatened the then mayor of Teguise Oswaldo Betancort (CC) and current island president with "fines against his personal assets" worth up to 1,500 euros. Then what was built was never demolished.
