In the statement he gave in court last February, in the case of the occupation of a public green area with the Kikoland, Juan Francisco Rosa also spoke of the other agreement that has just been declared null and void by the City Council, and which is also being investigated in that procedure.
Both agreements were signed by the then mayor, José Francisco Reyes, who was convicted in the Yate case for benefiting this same businessman, among others, and for collecting bribes in exchange for granting illegal licenses. Now, Reyes is also charged along with Rosa in this case for the occupation of green areas.
It was at the end of Rosa's statement - after explaining his 'far-fetched' version of how the public land occupied by the Kikoland ended up in his hands - when his own lawyer asked him about that second agreement, by which the City Council gave him another 14,800 square meters of green areas that should have been for public use for free.
“Salmepa, today BTL, buys from two savings banks in Guipuzcoa and Banco Zaragozano, above the Femés road to the north, a quantity of land - 500,000 square meters, according to his lawyer - and there I do the urbanization, I sell plots. And at the same time that I start with this, I hand over all the roads and public green areas to the City Council. Not only because it is my obligation, but also because I want them to pay for the water, the electricity, the breakages in the streets, once I have handed over the planning,” he began by saying.
However, moments later his first contradiction came, when he ended up stating that this mandatory transfer was actually made later, linking it to the agreement for them to transfer the use of a part of that land that he had to hand over to the City Council.
“Why was the agreement signed?”, his lawyer asked him. “Because I sold eight plots to JSP for a total of 40,000 square meters, and then José Sánchez Peñate says to me: 'Juan Francisco, I would like to reach an agreement like you have done in the Kikoland'. I say to him: 'No problem at all. But that has to be authorized by the City Council',” Rosa replied.
According to his statement, the other businessman then replied: “But the City Council says that since the green areas are yours...” That's where that first contradiction came, confirming that he had not made the mandatory transfer of the land. Furthermore, the green areas could never be considered “his”, but rather the City Council's, because there is that obligation to transfer them when a partial plan is developed, to leave free spaces for public use.
Afterwards, Rosa insisted on that same idea. According to him, Sánchez Peñate asked him "how they could do it", as if the management of the municipality's public land was in his hands. “Well, I'll give up the area and at the same time, I have no problem with you making an agreement with the City Council, the same as mine or better”, he declared that he replied.
However, the City Council did not sign that agreement with JSP, but directly with Rosa's company. And in the agreement - which was “totally harmful to the public interest”, according to the municipal reports and the Canary Islands Advisory Council - it was stipulated that he was also allowed to transfer it to a third party, which is what he did.
“The City Council tells you that in order for that act to take place, you have to transfer those public green areas to Mr. Peñate?”, Rosa's lawyer asked him. “Yes sir”, the businessman replied, without clarifying how he could transfer land that was not his, or why the City Council agreed to sign that agreement with Salmepa, renouncing public green areas without obtaining any benefit in return.
Nor did he clarify why he played that role of “intermediary” between the City Council and JSP, so that he would have “an agreement equal to or better” than his Kikoland agreement. The only thing he made clear is that together with the 40,000 square meters that he sold to this businessman, he ended up handing over almost 15,000 more meters of public land for his free exploitation for 25 years. “When making it public (the agreement), do you also make public the free transfer to Mr. Peñate of those meters so that he can manage that area?”, his lawyer asked him again. “In the same act. With the same protocol number, from one to the other the next”, Rosa replied, trying to distance himself from the occupation of that land.
Regarding the current situation of those lands, he pointed out that JSP “has them in its possession until now” and that it is “exploiting” them. For its part, the City Council explained this Wednesday that these green areas are occupied “by recreational facilities of hotel complexes, by virtue of a right of use granted by Salmepa to another company”. That other company, that is, JSP, does not directly operate the hotels either - nor the facilities that occupy public land and that led to the expansion of the hotel - since it in turn has them leased to other companies.
