The San Bartolomé City Council organized the 1st Protected Housing Conference of San Bartolomé last Saturday, which was attended by prestigious speakers who shed light on the legal and procedural issues for the acquisition of land for protected housing.
Among the speakers were Luis Fajardo Espínola, professor of Administrative Law at the Faculty of Law of La Laguna and advisor to the Advisory Council of the Canary Islands, who explained the legal instruments for obtaining land for the construction of protected housing and the framework of application in the municipality of San Bartolomé.
Another of the presentations that took place during the conference was that of Roque Calero Pérez, professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, who gave a presentation entitled "Urban Integration, Construction and Sustainability in Protected Housing: a challenge for San Bartolomé for the 21st century".
For his part, José Luis Barrero Peñalver, director of Residential Land Production of the Public Business Land Entity (SEPES), addressed the issue of land management; who was followed by Francisco Ortega Andrade, director of the Construction Department of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Professor of Construction, who analyzed the costs in protected housing.
Various municipal and island authorities were also present at the conference, such as the president of the Cabildo, Manuela Armas, as well as Jerónimo Fregel, general director of the Canarian Institute of Housing, who excused the presence of Inés Rojas at the conference, assuring that "from the Government of the Canary Islands there is an ambitious housing project, but the involvement of the councils and town halls is also necessary".
The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote appealed in her speech to article 47 of the Constitution, highlighting "that it not only says that all citizens have the right to decent housing, but that public authorities must do their part to ensure that it is carried out." The president also congratulated the City Council for the organization of these conferences.
On the other hand, the mayor of San Bartolomé, Marcial Martín, who was in charge of opening the conferences, was also present together with the Councilor for Housing, José Antonio González.
"If these Conferences serve to obtain the necessary land, to make it available to the Government of the Canary Islands, then we will have managed to activate the economic situation of the sector, generating decent, affordable housing and creating employment in a time of crisis like the current one. This is possible and necessary, let's do it each one from their responsibility", declared the mayor.
Once the presentations were finished, Concepción Álvarez, first deputy mayor of the San Bartolomé City Council, was in charge of closing the conferences, outlining the presentations, thanking the speakers and the attending public, words that were reiterated by the Housing Councilor José Antonio González, thus closing this first conference.