By C. S. G
After a time of relative calm, with the Easter break and the gradual and slow return to activities, political tension has returned to the island, and with great force. The last week of March has witnessed many open fronts within the main institutions of Lanzarote, with clashes both between the government groups and the opposition, as well as within the agreements themselves, where the Cabildo and the Arrecife City Council have been its main scenarios, although the rest of the municipal corporations have not been left out either.
Urban planning has once again been the reason for confrontation, with the possibility that the controversy in the capital's Consistory will end up in the Courts, while in the first island corporation, the tripartite agreement once again shows deep cracks.
The "sparks" in the Cabildo have been caused by the Special Territorial Plan, the new urban planning that is being carried out by the Department of Territorial Policy, which is directed by Carlos Espino. This issue has caused deep divergences on all fronts: the opposition criticizes the "secrecy" with which they say Espino is conducting himself on this issue; the mayors agree in criticizing that everything has been done so far "behind their backs", while unanimously demanding that the Plan include the leisure offer; and within the Government Group, they do not agree on this last aspect.
Golf courses and ports
That question, the leisure offer, is the crux of the disagreements. Carlos Espino has said, actively and passively, that the Special Plan will not include the complementary leisure offer, which he wants to be included in a subsequent document, but he is becoming increasingly alone in that position. The seven mayors have already made a "stand", demanding that the Special Plan define whether or not golf courses, marinas or any other type of leisure infrastructure should be in their municipalities, and in what quantity. And that opinion has now been joined by the president of the Cabildo, Inés Rojas, who finds Espino's position misguided, who therefore must fight that triple battle: with the opposition, with his own government partners and with the mayors, in addition to the "special" battle with the businessmen of the sector.
The president of the Cabildo, who first wanted to hide the clashes on this issue in the tripartite agreement, was forced after Espino's meeting with the mayors on the 25th to admit that there are "discrepancies" within the Government Group about whether or not the Special Plan should include the complementary leisure offer.
The Arrecife PGOU
In the Arrecife City Council, things are not calmer, and here too the main debate is around urban issues. The basic adaptation of the new General Urban Planning Plan of the capital of Lanzarote continues to be postponed. After eight months of silence, and after the first approval of the basic adaptation was "thrown back" by the Government Group itself, the opposition has not yet had access to the new definitive document, according to the Councilor for Urban Planning. And it is that Nuria Cabrera delivered one, and another and another diskette of the document, and two calls to plenary were announced for its approval that in the end were never made, but all the documents delivered had "errors", according to the councilor herself explained. "I already admitted that I had made a mistake when delivering the diskettes, and now we are filing the document without errors to deliver it on paper and thus avoid more confusion," said Cabrera last Wednesday the 26th. However, she could not anticipate either when she would deliver it definitively or when the plenary will be held for its approval.
A day earlier, the councilor of Alternativa Ciudadana, Andrés Barreto, had said that the document of the basic adaptation is "illegal" and that it was made to favor "personal interests". Nuria Cabrera responded by accusing him of "liar", because "he already knew that the document that we had delivered to him and on which he bases his accusations has errors", while admitting that she is studying the possibility of filing a lawsuit against Barrero for those statements.
But also in this issue, it is not only the Government Group and the opposition who clash, since apparently, in the tripartite agreement of the capital's City Council there are also divergences, although in this case they have not been "ventilated" publicly. The main point of discrepancy within the Government Group would be related to the Maneje neighborhood, an area where it is not possible to reach an agreement on the criteria and sectors of buildability.
With this situation, political representatives admit that they will have to make huge efforts so that the government agreements in the main institutions of the island arrive "alive" at the end of the Legislature, and with the certainty that the tension will grow as the electoral campaign approaches.
CARLOS ESPINO COUNTERATTACKS INÉS ROJAS AND THE SEVEN MAYORS
The Councilor for Territorial Policy of the Cabildo, Carlos Espino, shows firmness in the "battle" that the president of the corporation, Inés Rojas, and the seven mayors have decided to fight him, and counterattacks. He assures that he will not move an iota from his position that the Special Territorial Plan should not include the complementary leisure offer, and leaves in the air the question of who has broken the consensus in the Government Group on this, since "I explained clearly what will be my line of action in this regard, and there was consensus, since our government partners gave us the green light".
At the same time, Espino launches a warning in line with the statements of Inés Rojas supporting the demand of the mayors that the complementary leisure offer be included: "We refuse to allow anyone to pretend in an ultimatum plan that the Territorial Plan is made in one way or another," says the councilor, while stressing that "initially we are not going to make concessions, because we signed a government agreement in which we talked about continuing with the declassification process, and we are obliged to do that."
Specifically, Espino argues that including the complementary leisure offer in the Special Plan would mean delaying that already postponed planning by at least three more months, while describing the demand of the mayors and the president of the Cabildo as "a contest of occurrences".
"First we have to have a marketing plan, because we are not going to build the store before knowing what we want to sell and to whom," says the socialist councilor, and asks why the mayors of municipalities such as Tinajo and Haría (both controlled by Coalición Canaria) have not included that complementary offer in their municipal plans, and why Teguise (in the hands of Asamblea por Lanzarote) did not do so until ten days ago.
