Fajardo and Reyes, who disagree on which institution is right about tourist licenses, opted to reach an agreement during the meeting
Inés Rojas highlights "the desire and willingness to seek understanding" between the southern Corporation and the Cabildo after the "fruitful" official visit made
The president of the Cabildo, Inés Rojas, accompanied by the first and second vice presidents of the Corporation, Manuel Fajardo and Mario Pérez, visited the Yaiza City Council this Wednesday to hold a meeting with the mayor, José Francisco Reyes, in which to specify the various needs of the municipality to include them in the Social Action Plan and the Socio-Economic Dynamization Plan that local institutions must materialize with the First Corporation and the regional Executive in mid-November.
This official visit has raised great expectations due to the well-known confrontation that both institutions have maintained for years in terms of territorial containment, and which has led to the challenge by the island Corporation of various tourist licenses granted by the City Council.
With this act and the recent interview held with Reyes in the Presidency Area, both institutions speak of a great improvement in their relations, even of a before and after.
Southern demands
Among the main southern demands to be included in the aforementioned plans of the regional Executive, a new Health Center for Yaiza, a new bus station for Playa Blanca, the completion of the General Urban Planning Plan of the municipality -still paralyzed in the initial approval phase-, actions in El Golfo and in the Salinas del Janubio, improvements to roads and infrastructures in some towns of Yaiza, as well as a reunification of the different headquarters of the Town Hall stand out.
"It would take me a whole day to list our demands, but we will talk about issues such as the Papagayo campsite or the need to illuminate and secure the entrance to Papagayo, through which 1,207 vehicles passed a day in August."
Reyes made public other general requests such as infrastructures in various towns, or "improvements in the Femés square", headquarters of the patron saint of the Island, San Marcial de Rubicón, and from whose road to Maciot it is intended to "divert traffic".
Reyes also remarked on the intention to configure two new tourist centers, one in the Salinas del Janubio, and another between the Pechiguera Lighthouse and the Castillo de las Coloradas. "We have the potential, which is there, but we need to make these places more attractive", visited daily by almost 2,000 tourists.
In this sense, the president of the Cabildo announced that a new meeting between the Cabildo and all the town councils is scheduled for early November, to definitively capture the requests of the town councils to the Canarian Government.
In the middle of next month, the Minister of Economy and Finance of the autonomous Executive, José Carlos Mauricio, will visit Lanzarote to collect the final document from the island and municipal representatives, to be materialized in the aforementioned Social Action Plan, initially endowed with 112 million euros, and the Socioeconomic Dynamization Plan, which is expected to have about 400 million euros.
Lawsuits over the territory
But issues such as the drafting of the Special Territorial Plan (PTE) must also be addressed in the official visit, for which the representatives of the town councils have already held previous meetings with the Councilor for Territorial Policy and Environment of the Cabildo, Carlos Espino, and the team of drafters led by Fernando Prats.
Asked about the confrontation that both institutions have maintained in recent years regarding territorial containment, the mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, insisted that the reason lies with the Corporation he chairs since the latest revision of the Island Territorial Planning Plan (PIOT) "is not yet adapted to the territorial plans", which according to Reyes, "does not mean that we are facing each other".
The mayor of Yaiza appealed for the consensus that was lacking during the moratorium talks to be given on this occasion. "It is necessary that what happened with the revision of the PIOT and the moratorium does not happen again on this occasion, in which no agreements were reached with anyone and which only left lawsuits along the way", he asserted.
Reyes remarked that, in addition, the businessmen of Yaiza were willing to reach any type of agreement with the Cabildo in order to have a "tourist plan as it should be".
According to the president of the Cabildo, the previous experience lived with the "moratorium should serve to improve it much more" thanks to the Territorial Plan.
For his part, the first vice president of the Cabildo, Manuel Fajardo, appealed to the good faith between both institutions in pursuit of a single territorial and tourist model, and confirmed that very possibly during the conversations the three latest denials of tourist opening and operation licenses to the hotels [Papagayo Arena->http://www.lavozdelanzarote.com/article.php3?id_article=1381&var_recherche=Papagayo+Arena], [Rubicón Palace->http://www.lavozdelanzarote.com/article.php3?id_article=1848&var_recherche=Rubicon+Palace], and the [Caybeach apartments->http://www.lavozdelanzarote.com/article.php3?id_article=1739&var_recherche=Caybeach] complex would be touched.
"It is possible that they will be discussed, since these establishments are located in the municipality of Yaiza. From the Cabildo we are clear that we must move towards a stage of inter-administrative cooperation. We must all row in the same direction, and this Territorial Plan in the process of elaboration and drafting has to serve as a meeting place between the interests of the town councils, the island interest and above all the general and particular interest."
Asked about the [proposal for dialogue->http://www.lavozdelanzarote.com/article.php3?id_article=2169&var_recherche=Caybeach] extended by Reyes to the First Island Corporation, Fajardo was sure that all the efforts of "this and all the local corporations of the Island", because, he added, "what we are playing is the reformulation of the Island that we want for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren".
Montaña Roja
On the other hand, the president of the First Corporation, Inés Rojas, stated that she is in favor of reaching an agreement regarding the compensation rights of the promoters of the [Montaña Roja Partial Plan->http://www.lavozdelanzarote.com/article.php3?id_article=2743&var_recherche=Plan+parcial+Monta%F1a+Roja], a case in which the Cabildo has already presented a written preparation for a cassation appeal against the order of September 2, 2005, by which the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands partially upheld the appeal filed by Club Lanzarote (promoter of the Montaña Roja Plan), determining that there is a legal impossibility of executing the judgment of February 25, 1998 (on the validity of the Decree approving the Island Planning Plan of 1991), while requiring said company to submit within thirty days a detailed and justified liquidation of the corresponding compensation.
In an official statement, the Cabildo recalls that the cassation appeal is based on the fact that the aforementioned order of September 2 contradicts the terms of the ruling of the judgment of February 25, 1998 and resolves issues not decided, directly or indirectly, in the judgment, also incurring in incongruity and infringement of the legal system and the jurisprudence applicable in matters of execution of judgments.
According to the Councilor for Territorial Policy of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, "there is no legal impossibility of executing the judgment of February 1998 and no compensation right for Club Lanzarote derives from that execution".
After the presentation of the preparation of the cassation appeal, the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the TSJ of the Canary Islands must admit the appeal for processing, after which the Chamber will grant the Cabildo a period of thirty business days to appear before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court and formalize the appeal.
In the words of Carlos Espino, "it is more profitable to face the costs of declassification than to bear the inconveniences and deterioration of continuing with indiscriminate construction on the Island".
In her visit to Yaiza, Rojas did not want to advance the conditions that the Cabildo would offer during the negotiations with the promoters, but assured that all options would be exhausted before wasting public money. "We intend that with the Territorial Plan the possibilities of new tourist beds emerging in cases still in force and that offer these options susceptible to new constructions are reduced to the maximum", she said.
This Wednesday's meeting, the first since the Socialist Party (PSC-PSOE) joined the government group of the Cabildo, and which precedes those held with the City Council of San Bartolomé and La Graciosa, will be extended to the municipalities of Haría and Tinajo soon.
