The Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands has sealed this Tuesday a agreement with the Arrecife City Council whereby it transfers three municipal properties, totaling an area of 7,638 square meters, in order to allocate them to the construction of 200 officially protected homes (VPO) for public promotion under a special regime in the Maneje neighborhood. The Government of the Canary Islands will allocate 20 million euros of its own funds to the construction of these new social homes.
The area's councillor, Sebastián Franquis, highlighted the "boost" that the regional government has given in recent months to this VPO promotion, which had already been planned a decade ago but could never be launched until now. With this promotion of new VPO, which will be built to respond to housing requests from applicants in the municipality, the Canarian Government resumes the construction of public housing on the island of Lanzarote, 26 years after the last promotion.
The regional Executive also highlights that the Arrecife City Council, with the new Government group presided over by the mayor Astrid Pérez, "streamlined in these months the transfer of land to allow these necessary homes in the capital of the island, where nearly 50 percent of the population of Lanzarote resides".
Free Transfer
The transfer by the City Council of this land is done free of charge, despite the market value of each of the three transferred plots exceeding three million euros. This transfer signed this Monday will allow the administrative procedure to be launched to commission the drafting of a construction project and subsequent construction of these 200 homes, which will be financed with 20 million euros of public funds.
"Once the land transfer has been signed, we are now able to, from the ICAVI, proceed to define the construction project and I hope that by the end of this year we can put out to tender the construction of this new development," said Councillor Sebastián Franquis. "Since this Government began its journey, we have put our efforts into unblocking many housing construction operations that had been stalled for years, which is why for some months now we have been promoting this work with the Arrecife City Council, to which we are grateful for the cooperation shown at all times, giving priority to the creation of new public housing in Lanzarote, which is one of the islands where the least VPO has been built in the Canary Islands," he added.
Mayor Astrid Pérez has highlighted that one of her objectives is to speed up the construction of protected and public housing in Arrecife, "where the needs are pressing, even more so considering that Arrecife is among the areas of the Canary Islands and Spain with the most vulnerable families." The mayor of Arrecife is pleased that, "finally, 26 years later, public promotion housing is being launched in the capital of Lanzarote, for which we have given priority with the transfer of land."
This municipal land transferred to the Canarian Government is part of the Los Geranios Partial Plan, which allocates three plots to the Canarian Housing Institute with a total area of 7,638 meters square and a valuation of more than nine million euros. The ICAVI has planned that this development will have 200 homes distributed as follows: 20 one-bedroom houses, 30 two-bedroom houses, 120 three-bedroom houses and 30 four-bedroom houses.
This action is part of the objectives that are framed within the new Housing Plan of the Canary Islands, which contemplates the promotion of public housing construction and includes among its challenges the construction of 2,200 homes throughout the Archipelago, with its own funds and in coordination with other administrations and the private sector, after eight years in which the construction of any VPO on the islands was not promoted.
