The Contentious-Administrative Court No. 1 has sided with the Cabildo of Lanzarote and has confirmed the precautionary suspension decreed by the Councilor for Historical Heritage, Ariagona González, which suspended the execution of the renovation works of the Hotel Oriental authorized by the Arrecife City Council in September 2021.
The resolution of the councilor was appealed by the owner company and the Arrecife City Council joined the dispute, also publicly confronting the Cabildo, accusing the Island Government of having exceeded its powers and questioning the existence of values that justified the measure adopted by the Heritage councilor.
Contrary to what was publicly stated by the mayor of Arrecife, Astrid Pérez, the Court considers proven the existence of values that justify the protection of the property, and therefore the suspension of the works authorized by the city council against the criteria of the Cabildo.
Thus, the Court reminds the city council in its ruling that the Hotel Oriental appeared in the protection catalog incorporated into the General Planning Plan of 2014 in file 45 of the architectural and urban catalog of Arrecife.
Although the aforementioned General Plan did not come into effect, the mere inclusion of the property in that catalog means, in the opinion of the Court, that the Arrecife City Council cannot ignore the existence of values that require protecting the property, stating that "it is an uncontroversial fact that the property enjoys these values that would make it worthy of protection."
But, in addition, the Cabildo informed the city council, in March 2019, of the consequences of the work intended by the developer, warning that "for the upper floor, a restructuring intervention taking into account its nature is considered to negatively affect the present heritage values since it would imply its disappearance," negatively reporting the license application.
An Untrue Justification
The mayor of Arrecife, Astrid Pérez, was repeatedly warned that the project presented by the developer was totally incompatible with the preservation of the property's values and that she should, therefore, refrain from authorizing the works.
Astrid Pérez shielded herself, in different public statements, by saying that she had to authorize the works due to a ruling that obliged her to grant the license.
However, in the ruling that was known this Thursday, the Court clarifies that said ruling, corresponding to ordinary procedure 42/2019, obliged her to "continue with the processing of the license." Evidently, continuing with the procedure can mean both granting the license and denying it, since what the Court required was that she resolve the file without predetermining the result of the same.
An Artificial and Unnecessary Controversy
The Councilor for Historical Heritage of the Cabildo has indicated the enormous satisfaction that the Court has clearly and indisputably validated the actions of the island administration, but, at the same time, has lamented the position of the mayor of Arrecife: "The ruling demonstrates that the controversy generated by Astrid Pérez was artificial and unnecessary. The Cabildo acted correctly by precautionary suspending the works of the Hotel Oriental and it was the Arrecife City Council that acted inappropriately ignoring the warnings that were made from Heritage, relying on lies and half-truths."
González concluded by demanding Astrid Pérez to show statesmanship and institutional loyalty, reminding her that the defense of historical heritage is a task that requires the cooperation of all administrations, especially when the mayor of Arrecife, as a parliamentarian during the past legislature, added her vote to the approval of the current Law on Cultural Heritage of the Canary Islands: "Astrid Pérez cannot ignore her obligations and must be aware of the need to cooperate to guarantee the conservation of our main heritage elements, facilitating, within the framework of the law, their adaptation and enjoyment. As councilor of the area, I remind her again that she can count on the loyal collaboration of the Cabildo in that endeavor but always respecting the legal and technical criteria that, I repeat, she herself approved."