The Papagayo Arena Hotel is an establishment with about 230 jobs and is located on the beachfront of Las Coloradas beach, between the fishing village of Playa Blanca and the unspoiled beaches of Papagayo, just on the edge of the Natural Monument of Los Ajaches.
According to lavozdelanzarote.com, it was last year when, once built and opened to the public, the establishment's managers applied to the Cabildo for the definitive opening license. The First Corporation of Lanzarote had already appealed this construction since 2000. Among other things, the Las Coloradas Partial Plan only allowed the construction of establishments with a maximum of three floors.
Now, after reviewing its file - rescued from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria since Tourism transferred the powers to the Cabildo but not the documents - the accidental president of the Island Council of Lanzarote, Manuel Fajardo, issued yesterday a decree denying the opening and operating permits to the controversial 12-story hotel built next to the beaches of Papagayo.
The two basic reasons on which the resolution number 2.884/ 2005 is based are, on the one hand, the non-compliance with the PIOT and, on the other hand, the substantial modification of the initial project for which the construction was initially authorized.
The whole process began when the mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, granted in 1998 the building permit to execute this hotel, the largest of those authorized on the Island. The Cabildo, which had initiated the revision of the Island Plan in 1997, immediately appealed the municipal decision.
Already in 1999, and being the Minister of Tourism of the autonomous Executive the Lanzarote native Juan Carlos Becerra Robayna - today in the same political faction as Reyes, the Nationalist Party of Lanzarote (PNL) - the Government of the Canary Islands granted the prior tourist authorization to that hotel project. It was in 2004 when the Cabildo, given that it has the tourist competences since 2000 except in matters of inspection and sanction, has rejected the authorization of opening and putting into operation and has appealed these provisional tourist permits of the project.
And it is that although the provisional license was granted by the regional Government, then with power in these functions, the request for opening by the interested party was formulated at the end of 2003, when these competences had already been transferred from the autonomous Executive to the island councils, so it had to send the request to the First Corporation of Lanzarote.
The Cabildo has the power to deny the permits for opening and tourist operation of an establishment even if it complies with the legal tourist determinations. But in this specific case, the Cabildo has detected two serious and alleged irregularities: on the one hand, the project presented to the Ministry of the Canary Islands Government by the promoter to obtain the tourist authorization has been subsequently modified in practice, and what has been executed does not correspond to the project authorized by the autonomous Government - in any case, the promoters of the Hotel Papagayo Arena had to have presented a reform project before introducing such substantial modifications in the initial idea, extreme that was not carried out -; on the other hand, when the former Minister of Tourism, Juan Carlos Becerra, granted the provisional tourist authorization to the mentioned hotel - apparently it was customary in all the permits - he added at the end of the opening license that it had to be taken into account that the implication of the Island Plan had not been revised, so the definitive authorization remained in the hands of the Cabildo, once it had already acquired the tourist competences transferred from the Government.
That is to say, in the case of the Hotel Papagayo Arena, not only was the initial project modified without permission, but also, neither the first project nor the resulting and finally materialized one comply with the PIOT. Therefore, the Cabildo makes it clear that it does not grant the opening and operating licenses, emphasizing that the delay with which it has pronounced itself has never been synonymous with a silent yes.
Consequences of the decree
As a consequence of the decreed resolution, the Papagayo Arena hotel is currently an accommodation establishment that is open to the public, not only without authorization from the Cabildo but with authorization denied, which even aggravates the situation. From here, it is quite probable that the Tourist Inspection of the Autonomous Community will have to act accordingly and proceed to the closure of the establishment, as the hotel lacks the authorization that has been denied with the act by the representatives of the Cabildo. From this Wednesday, therefore, the Hotel Papagayo Arena is an illegally opened establishment, and the provisional permits are no longer valid.
Claim of competences
This case raises again the controversy over the famous claim of competences in tourism matters. And it is that it is most paradoxical and incongruous that the Cabildo, institution that decides on the granting of permits, can not subsequently execute its decisions, but the materialization and consequence of these decisions still have to be carried out by another Administration, in this case, the Government of the Canary Islands, as the councils lack the powers of inspection and tourist sanction, still not transferred, a question that was highlighted in the renowned report prepared in this regard by the Lanzarote jurist Agustín Domingo Acosta Hernández, who the First Island Corporation asked to perform a detailed analysis of all these assumptions.
