The restoration of the Ramírez Cerdá Park suspended until the maritime demarcation is approved, according to the Arrecife City Council.
The mayor explains that the council had planned to put out to tender in 2024 the works for the integral restoration of this park on La Marina Avenue. An investment of 1.7 million euros, from municipal funds, aims to restore Manrique's footprint and intervention in this leisure space, and give it the splendor it had in the past, with careful landscaping providing it with trees and vegetation in its flowerbeds. The entire project has been approved by Heritage, and Costas has had it in its possession since last autumn.
This week, the Arrecife City Council received the official communication from the General Directorate of Coasts and the Sea, of the State Secretariat for the Environment, of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, where it is communicated, in view of the reiteration of the request from the Arrecife City Council, dated February 6, for the mandatory authorization, that "Currently, the demarcation of public maritime-terrestrial domain assets that affects the park in which the authorization is requested is being processed under the agreement to initiate proceedings dated November 21, 2022...". Therefore, the Ministry notifies that "the authorization period is suspended until the approval of the demarcation, which will imply the lifting of the suspension of the granting of concessions and authorizations in the public maritime-terrestrial domain and in its protection easement zone..."
The City Council points out that "as is known, and notorious, the José Ramírez Cerdá Park, dedicated to the memory of the former mayor of Arrecife, and president of the Cabildo, is built on the old boundaries of the primitive Onion Dock, built in 1792, at one of its ends, and on the west side of the old Parador de Turismo, which opened in 1950".
The mayor of the city, Yonathan de León, who is also the head of the Department of Public Works, "does not agree that Costas now intends in this 21st century to establish a new demarcation in this section of the city whose park was built between 1953 and 1959. The mayor recalls that this park, and its marine demarcation, is prior to the Coasts Laws of 1969, 1988, and 2013".
Yonathan de León had announced, last Christmas, that the City Council was going to launch these restoration works in 2024, with an investment of more than 1.7 million euros, to recover the image of this park, with the protection of the intervention and legacy of César Manrique. The City Council was only waiting to receive the mandatory approval from Costas to put it out to tender.
Now, with this communication - in view of the reiteration of the City Council - via the Canary Executive that protects the Maritime-Terrestrial Easement zone - the restoration of the park is paralyzed by that decision of the State Secretariat for the Environment, of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge. The approval of the demarcation in the maritime front of the city of Arrecife has no completion date. "And it is surprising that a park built many years before these Coasts Laws is affected," says De León.
Finally, Yonathan de León hopes that "the red hand of the PSOE is not behind this paralysis" when local socialists feel that citizens positively value the launch of numerous works for the modernization of the city of Arrecife.
