The Housing Councilor of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Jorge Peñas, has denied that funding will be lost to build social housing in Arrecife and calls the words issued by the PP through a press release a "string of falsehoods".
"It is absolutely false that Lanzarote is at risk of losing funding for the construction of 64 social rental housing units in Arrecife," he said. "It is irresponsible to alarm the island's population, which suffers from a lack of public housing after 26 years of nationalism in the Government of the Canary Islands," added Peñas, who hopes that "a party that was part of the island's government until a few months ago will not resort to hoaxes and lies for purely electoral purposes."
According to the councilor, although the approval of a modification to the file for the transfer of land owned by the Cabildo to the Canarian Housing Institute for the construction of said housing on a plot located on Triana Street in Arrecife was brought to this Monday's plenary session, "it was not because the governing group of the Island Corporation has made any mistake either."
"What has happened is that in November it was approved in the plenary session of the Cabildo that the transfer would be made by public deed and now the Canarian Housing Institute has required that it be done through an agreement. That is why a rectification had to be made, not because we have not done the job well," said the councilor.
In this sense, the head of the Housing area has insisted that the processing of the file has been carried out in "due time and form" and although he has acknowledged that there has been "some problem", he defends that "it has been beyond the control of the Cabildo of Lanzarote".
"We had done all the procedures and months ago the documentation was sent to the Government of the Canary Islands, but it is true that there was a lack of coordination in the processing of the file between the Canarian Housing Institute and the Vice-Ministry of Public Administrations of the Regional Executive, which is the one that has the competence to register the patrimonial assets, and that is why the requirement did not reach us until now," detailed Jorge Peñas.
"Therefore, I insist, there has been no lack of diligence on the part of this Cabildo," reiterated the councilor, who nevertheless questioned the "undue delays" that occurred on the part of the Arrecife City Council, "which had to be required on several occasions to issue a report necessary for the transfer."
Now, and after the modification approved this Monday in the plenary session of the Cabildo, Peñas hopes that the construction of these social houses in Arrecife, as well as those in Yaiza, will begin soon, through the project of the Ministry of Development called Plan 20,000.
"The purpose is to alleviate and correct the imbalances in the rental market as a result of the scarce supply and the increase in prices due to the pressure of vacation rentals," he concludes.
