PHOTOS: Sergio Betancort
Hormiconsa has already begun to dismantle the illegal warehouses that had been operating for more than a decade in the Maneje neighborhood, with a crusher and other attached concrete manufacturing plants. It was in the middle of this year when the Arrecife City Council ordered the demolition of these facilities, shortly after the Provincial Court confirmed the conviction of businessman Miguel Morales for a crime against land planning and another of serious disobedience to authority for carrying out this work.
The trial against Morales was held at the end of 2011 and in October of that year the sentence was handed down, which sentenced him to 1 year and 8 months in prison, one year of special disqualification for the exercise of professional activities related to construction and to pay a fine of 67,500 euros. The businessman then filed an appeal and the response came more than three years later, on February 26. In that ruling, the Provincial Court declared the case "definitively judged" and ordered the "execution and fulfillment" of the sentence, which also included the demolition of the warehouses.
Without license and on protected land
The facilities were built without even applying for a license and on protected land where construction was not allowed, even violating a sealing order from the Arrecife City Council in its day. That sealing order issued in October 2005 was until now the only measure that the City Council had adopted against Hormiconsa, both to stop the works and to urge the closure of the facilities once they were already in operation. Thus, the company continued to exploit this industry, even after the first sentence was handed down, which already in 2011 confirmed its illegality and the need to demolish them.
Finally, in April of this year, two months after the final judgment arrived, the City Council ordered the company to present a demolition project. The order was issued on April 1 and Hormiconsa presented the project on June 5, although the City Council ordered corrections to be made, until it was finally approved.
Since the notification was sent to the promoter, for which it was necessary to resort to agents of the Local Police, he had one month to execute the demolition or dismantling of the warehouses. Afterwards, a municipal technician will have to supervise that the mandate and the presented project have been complied with.
A decade in illegality
The case of Hormiconsa dates back more than a decade, when Morales built the facilities "without having obtained prior territorial qualification and municipal building permit", as the sentence considered proven. In addition, although the City Council ordered the sealing in October 2005, the works continued. For this reason, Miguel Morales was convicted not only of a crime against land planning, but also of serious disobedience to authority.
"The accused says that he has been put in a mess, he considered himself politically persecuted and I don't know if he aspired to an impunity that no longer exists. This is a mockery of the rule of law," said prosecutor Ignacio Stampa during the trial, stating that during the hearing the businessman was "unmasked."
The case reached the courts at the hands of Andrés Barreto, who was then a councilor for Alternativa Ciudadana in Arrecife. Initially, the former mayor of the city, María Isabel Déniz, and the former Councilor for Urban Planning, Nuria Cabrera, were charged in the case. Barreto then denounced that Déniz and Cabrera had not taken real measures against Hormiconsa during the works, nor had they requested the demolition of the facilities. However, the actions against the councilor and the former mayor were finally dismissed, since the Court understood that with that sealing order, which was not complied with, the two councilors had at least taken some measure.