The Department of Heritage of the Arrecife City Council received this Tuesday the document containing the new Municipal Catalog of Cultural Heritage Assets, an essential instrument for the protection, conservation, and management of the municipality's material heritage.
The catalog includes a total of 220 properties and heritage elements, representing a qualitative and quantitative leap compared to the currently active catalog, dated 1991 and comprising only 19 properties.
The reception of this document marks "a decisive moment" for the city, culminating a long period of technical and administrative work and allowing progress with guarantees towards the initial approval of the catalog by the municipal plenary, which will be the next step in the procedure.
This reception also occurs after the strategic environmental assessment process has been favorably completed, which confirms that the catalog does not generate significant environmental effects and allows the process to continue in accordance with current regulations.
"A city that loses its heritage is a city without identity"
The Councilor for Heritage, Maciot Cabrera, underlines "the historical importance of this advance for Arrecife and its identity as a city," emphasizing that "a city that loses its heritage is a city without identity. For decades, Arrecife has lacked an updated catalog, adapted to the reality of the municipality and current legislation, and that has had consequences. The legal uncertainty derived from an obsolete instrument has led to the loss of part of our material heritage," he states.
The councilor recalls that the Catalog of Protected Buildings currently in force is part of the General Urban Development Plan approved in 2003, which in turn is based on "a very limited and clearly insufficient list to meet the demands of Law 11/2019 on Cultural Heritage of the Canary Islands". Said law expanded municipal powers regarding heritage and established the obligation to formulate and approve municipal catalogs adapted to its provisions, even setting a transitional period that has already been exceeded. "This new catalog responds to that legal need and to an institutional responsibility that Arrecife could no longer postpone," says Cabrera.
The new document is for the Governing group, "representative, in quantity, qualities, and typologies, of the municipality's cultural heritage and allows for the rigorous identification, ordering, and protection of the assets that make up the historical, architectural, and cultural memory of the capital." In addition to being a protection instrument, the catalog provides "legal certainty and clear criteria for the intervention, conservation, and management of properties, laying the groundwork for a balanced relationship between heritage protection and urban planning."
A catalog imposed by law
Meanwhile, the deputy mayor of the Arrecife City Council, Echedey Eugenio, has highlighted the institutional and strategic scope of the catalog. "Today Arrecife takes a firm step to catch up and comply with the law, but also to recognize itself. This catalog does not look to the past, it looks to the future with respect for our history and for what we are as a city," he states.
Eugenio has highlighted the rigor of the procedure followed and the technical work developed to reach this point, as well as the coordination with the administrations involved. "We are facing a serious, well-worked, and justified document, which has overcome all the required procedures and will allow us to move forward with transparency and security in the protection of Arrecife's cultural heritage," he adds.
With the reception of the Municipal Catalog of Cultural Heritage Assets, the Arrecife City Council is decisively moving forward in updating one of its main heritage protection instruments, correcting a historical deficiency and laying the groundwork for responsible management, in accordance with current legislation and committed to the city's identity and collective memory.
