“I hope that the City Council assumes its responsibility this month and puts an end to the helplessness of the residents of Titerroy”

Councilor Sebastián Franquis has insisted in Parliament that the Arrecife City Council has "all the resources at its disposal to carry out the rehabilitation works on the five homes in the neighborhood."

October 10 2022 (18:51 WEST)
Updated in October 11 2022 (09:50 WEST)
Councilor Sebastián Franquis, during his speech in Parliament
Councilor Sebastián Franquis, during his speech in Parliament

The Councilor for Public Works, Transportation and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands, Sebastián Franquis, lamented this Monday in the regional Parliament the situation that the Titerroy neighborhood is experiencing and has blamed "the inaction of the Arrecife City Council to start the remodeling works and reform of the most deteriorated homes in this area", which had to be evicted "due to their poor state of conservation."

“I hope and wish that the Arrecife City Council assumes its responsibility, assumes the subsidy that we have approved and, therefore, manages and carries out the pending works and puts an end once and for all to so much helplessness, so much uncertainty and so much neglect that the families of Titerroy have suffered for years,” said Franquis.

Before a question from the socialist deputy and president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, María Dolores Corujo, the councilor has defended that "since 2019, the team of the Ministry has undertaken different actions to favor that the City Council can start the reform and rehabilitation of the homes in the neighborhood" that were evicted. In addition, he recalled that he himself asked the Ministry in Madrid for an extension of the deadline, until 2022, to be able to carry out the comprehensive reform plan of the neighborhood with an ARRU (Area of Regeneration and Urban Renovation). "But despite numerous attempts to mediate and try to find a solution, this was never launched by the municipal government," he lamented.

“What have we done from the government and who is speaking to you when we have assumed the responsibility of this area? Well, what we have done is, where there was uncertainty, put certainty, where there was abandonment, put protection, where there was neglect, put effort and work. That is what we have done in this matter so that the affected families who have had to leave their homes due to their poor state of conservation are not left helpless by what has happened,” said Franquis. "These families cannot continue waiting for public administrations to give them an answer to their problem. Therefore, the first thing we did was ask for an extension of the expiration of that ARRU, but the City Council has not been able to launch it,” he insisted.

In this sense, Sebastián Franquis explained that, "once the ARRU door was closed, the Ministry had to directly commission an expert opinion of the five most affected homes." “In view of this situation, we committed ourselves to the neighbors to carry out an expert opinion of these homes and seek financing to repair them in a matter that is not the responsibility of the administration of the Autonomous Community, but municipal,” the councilor specified. "Even so, we commissioned and carried out the expert opinion of these homes and approved a subsidy of 350,000 euros for the renovation works. For this, we contacted the Arrecife City Council to transfer that amount and, therefore, they would assume the management and execution of that work, but they still do not assume the subsidy,” he questioned.

“The City Council told us weeks ago that if they did not have the construction project, they were not willing to do that work. And what we have done since that moment is to commission the project, not without difficulty. We already have the project commissioned so that, in an approximate period of one month, we can have that project finished and ready to execute the works,” added Sebastián Franquis. "I hope that this is the month that we can solve this matter definitively," he concluded.

 

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