The Supreme Court has definitively annulled the II Modernization Plan of Puerto del Carmen, thus confirming the ruling issued in December 2018 by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands. This was announced by the Tías City Council, which states that according to its legal services, the ruling "does not affect the licenses granted and integrated in this document corresponding to projects already executed."
In a statement, the Consistory recalls that the Plan "was processed at the time of the previous government, led by the PP, and the first ruling that warned of its nullity was also issued during its term of government, without any initiative being launched to correct or supplement the aforementioned plan." Therefore, it defends that the current government team, formed by PSOE, Lanzarote Avanza (LAVA) and Lanzarote en Pie-Sí Podemos, "began working from day one on a third plan that provides greater legal certainty to all executed actions, while incorporating half a hundred new actions."
The III Plan for Modernization, Improvement and Increase of Competitiveness of Puerto del Carmen, which remained in public information during the past month of August, incorporates the content and actions of the I and II Modernization Plan and includes "major public actions, such as the implementation of a health center and an international diving center in the Playa Chica area."
Regarding the II Plan that has just been definitively annulled, it was approved in December 2013 by the Government of the Canary Islands, which was involved in the case as a defendant along with the Tías City Council. The ruling of the TSJC, now ratified by the Supreme Court, upheld the appeal filed by an individual and declared that decree of final approval null, considering that an essential procedure was omitted in its processing.
Specifically, the Second Section of the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the TSJC concluded that the document was approved without the prior report from Coasts, which was "mandatory and binding." In this regard, it stated that the Coasts Law requires that urban planning documents, when they affect the coastline, must have a report prior to the preparation of the plan and then a report of the plan in process before its final approval, which was the one that was omitted.
"There is no discussion that the Modernization Plan was approved without waiting for the mandatory and binding report prior to its final approval," the ruling stated, which thus upheld one of the grounds for appeal raised by the plaintiff and declared the approval of the document null.
