The Plenary of the Parliament of the Canary Islands today approved the bill to modify the Canary Islands Housing Law, which allows, on a transitional basis until the full adaptation of the municipal general planning schemes, the reclassification of rustic land into developable land, provided that at least 50 percent of the reclassified plots - which must be adjacent to urban land - are dedicated to subsidized housing.
The proposal had the unanimous support of the parliamentary groups, except in the section that provides for the modification of the Law on General Planning Guidelines and Tourism - not foreseen in the proposal submitted by the Executive and introduced in the parliamentary process via amendment by CC-. The groups rejected the particular vote presented by the PSOE to suppress this section, since they consider that this is not the appropriate way to modify the Guidelines and proposed that the Executive present these changes through a bill of urgent measures.
The socialist deputy, José Alcaraz, indicated that the PSOE "has serious doubts about the constitutionality of this modification" which he pointed out is going to be carried out without legal reports, explanatory memorandum and without the pronouncement of the Advisory Council, a situation that he described as "improper, serious and shameful" and affirmed that it breaks the basic consensus reached in the regional Chamber on the Guidelines.
Modification of the law
Alcaraz regretted that the modification of the housing law is used "as a catch-all law" to introduce changes in the Guidelines and defended that this should be done through a bill of urgent measures as the way that provides "political transparency and legal certainty, values that the Chamber must preserve".
In contrast, the spokespersons of the Coalición Canaria (CC) and Partido Popular (PP) groups, José Miguel González and Jorge Rodríguez, respectively, defended that it is a specific modification that will unblock the processing of development plans by local administrations.
Rodríguez (PP) insisted on the need for the measure for the development of these plans, and although he acknowledged that the technique used "may not be the most appropriate", he estimated that "the incalculable and disastrous consequences of having the island development planning paralyzed would be worse". González (CC) also spoke along these lines, who insisted that it is a specific modification and denied that the consensus reached in the Chamber on the Guidelines has been broken with it.
The modification of the Guidelines focuses on exempting these territorial and urban plans from the limitation established in the Guidelines on the impossibility of continuing the processing of any territorial or urban plan once the deadline set by the Guidelines for the adaptation of the planning instruments has been exceeded.
Planning Guidelines
Despite this, it is established that these plans will have to adapt to the determinations of the General Planning Guidelines. In addition, the Administration that formulates them must justify its decision and must have a mandatory report from the Planning Commission of the Territory and Environment of the Canary Islands.
CC, PP and Grupo Mixto also rejected the two amendments presented by the PSOE, to extend the period of public information to 30 days and to extend up to 60 percent the land destined for protected housing.
The document approved today provides that at least 50 percent of the use of the reclassified land will be used for the construction of protected housing and this percentage includes 10 percent of mandatory and free transfer, which must be used "unavoidably" by the Administration for the promotion of publicly promoted protected housing. The PSOE proposal proposed that this 10 percent be added to the 50 percent already allocated to protected housing.
It is also established that the reclassified land may not be framed within the categories of rustic land that harbor natural or cultural values of environmental protection, nor other modalities collected by the Laws of Territorial Planning of the Canary Islands and Natural Spaces of the Canary Islands. It also establishes that the land to be reclassified must be contiguous to urban or developable land and the minimum area of new classification of developable land will be 2 hectares.
