Coalición Canaria (CC) Tías demands that the socialist mayor, José Juan Cruz, stop deceiving citizens regarding the content of the new Modernization, Improvement, and Competitiveness Plan (PMM) for Puerto del Carmen. The nationalist municipal spokesperson, Amado Vizcaíno, maintains that the document “categorically refutes” the mayor's claims, who has been publicly assuring that the Plan “does not contemplate new hotel infrastructure”.
"It's false, you just need to read Volume 3 of the Modernization Plan. Specifically section 3.1, where the evaluation sheets for each action are detailed. It is clear there that the PSOE governing group is promoting changes of protected residential use to tourist uses in areas where current planning expressly prohibits them," denounces Vizcaíno.
5 new accommodation infrastructures
CC Tías clarifies that the document the socialists intend to push forward, vital for the future of Puerto del Carmen and which should, as its name suggests, be for modernizing tourist infrastructure, is actually being used to make land-use changes, especially to allow tourist uses on land exclusively for residential use.
"To the point that the intention is to implement at least 5 new accommodation infrastructures, or alternatively, the expansion of an existing one, in La Tiñosa, whose land has been exclusively classified for residential use since 2005," states the nationalist municipal spokesperson in the Tías City Council"Among these actions are the expansion of the La Isla y El Mar hotel on a plot currently zoned for residential use; the establishment of an urban hotel on Teide street, where tourist use is prohibited by the current plan; and new accommodation establishments on Roque Nublo, Bajamar, or Salinas streets where Villa Mare is intended to be converted into an urban or boutique hotel, all of them contemplated through the incorporation of tourist accommodation as an alternative use, increases in buildability, and height increases," it adds.
Cynicism of José Juan Cruz
Each of these interventions "acknowledges that tourist use was prohibited and that a change of use is required to implement it. This completely dismantles the cynical discourse that the socialist mayor José Juan Cruz has been preaching," Vizcaíno emphasizes.
CC Tías also denounces that the Modernization Plan introduces changes of use in public actions, substituting residential for commercial or tourist land under the pretext of actions of general interest, such as a supposed International Diving Center which, according to Vizcaíno, "is not even intended to be located on the plots that the Plan modifies and is already being tendered on land belonging to the Directorate General of Coasts."
Health center
Furthermore, it considers the endowment action 2 "especially serious," which proposes an increase in buildability and commercial capacity—also by changing the use of residential land to commercial—"unifying two plots with the argument of obtaining land for the implementation of the Puerto del Carmen Health Center, at the expense of a reduction in free spaces and public roads."Vizcaíno recalls that the City Council has municipal land on Reina Sofía street, currently used for educational purposes, for which CC requested its transfer to the Canary Islands Government and its rezoning to healthcare facilities in 2019, an option that - he argues - is more logical both for its immediate availability and its location, "more central for the population and better connected by road to handle emergency situations"."At that time, the PSOE claimed to have a faster solution through the Modernization Plan. Six years have passed and they have done absolutely nothing. Now we discover that what they are really looking for is to increase the commercial use of a residential plot, disguising it as a need to obtain land for the health center," he explains.Regarding this, Amado Vizcaíno announces that at the next municipal plenary session, Coalición Canaria Tías will once again present the 2019 motion for the land on Reina Sofía street to be ceded and reclassified with the aim of building "a proper health center, not fictitious solutions or speculative operations."
PSOE's "Urban Planning Tricks"
CC Tías questions "the PSOE's insistence on adding tourist or commercial uses to land that only allows residential use in the document; even more so given the serious housing situation we are experiencing."In this regard, its municipal spokesperson warns that "anyone who reads the Modernization Plan, without being fooled by the headlines intentionally spread by the mayor, will easily see how many actions increase buildability, heights, and tourist capacity, even allowing the establishment of accommodation complexes where tourist use is currently prohibited.""Those who claim to defend more housing and curb tourism growth are promoting the biggest package of land-use changes towards tourism activity that La Tiñosa has seen in decades. The urban planning tricks of the PSOE with José Juan Cruz at the helm no longer fool anyone," it concludes.
