The mayor of Yaiza, Óscar Noda, registered a document in the Cabildo of Lanzarote last week directly questioning the president Oswaldo Betancort about the budgetary forecasts referring to two projects that the City Council considers a priority. One, due to the housing crisis that the municipality and the entire island are experiencing, and the other, due to the impact on a particularly sensitive area of landscape value: “We want to know what is happening with the 10 million announced by the Cabildo for the co-financing of the 136-house project and the almost 20 million to bury 7.2 km of the 132 kV line between Maciot and Las Casitas.”
Regarding housing, Óscar Noda reminds the president of “the item promised to co-finance the construction project of 136 homes on the 42,000 m² plot ceded by the Yaiza City Council in Montaña Roja, a project of more than 35 million euros promoted from the municipality that will be tendered by the Ministry of Public Works, Housing and Mobility of the Government of the Canary Islands.”
The mayor held a meeting in early August with the director of the Canarian Housing Institute, Antonio Jesús Ortega, “and in that meeting held in Yaiza it was very clear that, apart from the money that the Government can obtain from European funds, the Canarian Executive does have the 10 million from the Cabildo to tender the construction of the 136 homes for affordable rent.”
Óscar Noda expressly asks the highest authority of the Cabildo to “not only ratify this investment commitment with Yaiza, but also the estimated date of availability of the money. We are concerned about the amount of the treasury surplus that the Cabildo may incorporate and the political decision regarding its allocation.”
Fewer towers
Another project pending Cabildo co-financing is the burying of electrical lines in sectors of high landscape value in the municipality, such as Las Casitas, Femés and Maciot: “It is a strategic project for Lanzarote since it is about freeing the south of the Island from that terrible visual impact of the towers in sensitive areas without putting at risk the infrastructures that determine the conduction and permanent supply of energy.”
The City Council, according to the mayor, “has worked hand in hand with Redeia, the parent company of Red Eléctrica in the Canary Islands, in the study of technical and administrative formulas for burying the line between the towns of Maciot and Las Casitas, trusting in the 18 million euros promised by the Cabildo. The passage of time implies an increase in the execution costs of the project, and as in the case of housing, we also need to know what the Cabildo is going to do, if it is in a position to invest and when it plans to specify it, especially understanding that it is a major initiative that requires the support of the Government of the Canary Islands in order to prepare the 2026 autonomous budget.”
