Residents of Valterra have hung banners in protest for not having fulfilled the commitment to transfer the homes in which they reside. "They came, promised, signed an agreement in Las Palmas, but everything has been nonsense apparently," said Antonio Betancort, spokesman for the negotiating table association for the houses of Rocar, Garavilla and Ojeda.
It was the Government Delegation in the Canary Islands who announced last May that the State would donate the houses to the Arrecife City Council so that the City Council could proceed to award them to the residents.
The houses were built in the 50s on land ceded by the City Council to the Social Institute of the Navy and were financed by three canning companies to be used for workers of these. However, although Betancort says that "the houses have been amortized for 30 years" because the workers "paid a monthly rent with the right to ownership", he points out that of the 200 that were built, only half were transferred to the name of their tenants.
"This is already making fun of people"
After the announcement of the State, the then mayor of the capital, Eva de Anta, and the provincial director of the Social Institute of the Navy (ISM) in Las Palmas, José Julián Suárez, signed an agreement to "speed up" the regularization of the ownership of the remaining homes.
"But everything remains the same. We have been dealing with the issue for 20 years and this is already making fun of people. Here everything is back and forth and nobody provides a solution in this regard", points out the spokesman for the negotiating table association for the houses of Rocar, Garavilla and Ojeda.
In this regard, Antonio Betancort assures that they held a meeting with the new mayor of Arrecife, Ástrid Pérez, and that she "refused" to help them. "She said that she was not going to take a problem, that it was a problem for the City Council and that she was not going to take charge," she says. "And I don't know what's wrong with the Institute, because they should have already delivered them," adds the spokesman for the negotiating table for the houses of Rocar, Garavilla and Ojeda, who demands a solution.
