The Chamber of Commerce has accused the government group of the Arrecife City Council of "blocking" more than 1,500 public homes in the capital for "unjustifiably paralyzing" the approval of the Supplementary Plan prepared by Gesplan. "The municipal government has its own powers and tools to solve the housing problem and is not exercising them, but quite the opposite, it is hindering them," says the president of the chamber entity, José Torres Fuentes, who has once again asked to "speed up the procedures" of the Plan.
From the Chamber of Commerce they point out that the Arrecife Supplementary Plan orders the pieces of land currently available in the city and designates a percentage of all residential building land to Public Protection Housing (VPP), another percentage to free spaces and another percentage to public land, "which would become the property of the Arrecife City Council." "This is what the government group is paralyzing without any justification: the Supplementary Plan drafted based on the guidelines ordered by the government group itself, entrusted to Gesplan, with the active participation of the City Council from the beginning of its drafting through at least 43 coordination meetings," considers Torres Fuentes.
The chamber entity points out that, "according to the Land Management Plan, the land destined for public housing, which is the most urgent, would be between 30% and 40% of the total residential building land in the city, a percentage that translates into at least 1,535 public protection homes, out of a maximum of 4,799 homes that this Plan allows to build and that would be distributed throughout the city, including the first line of coast."
"This would solve one of the most pressing problems of the capital, given the rise in rents and the shortage of houses. However, the City Council is accusing other administrations of being responsible for what is happening with housing, while blocking the most effective tool to solve it," says the president of the Lanzarote Chamber of Commerce, José Torres Fuentes.
The creation of free spaces, "another need"
Regarding the creation of free spaces, Torres Fuentes points out that "it is another of the needs of the capital." In this sense, he affirms that "the Supplementary Plan foresees creating open spaces inside the urban area to increase the space destined for citizens to 9 square meters per inhabitant, which is currently at 3 square meters per inhabitant, thus failing to comply with current legislation."
"Free spaces are areas in which the creation of parks, gardens, leisure and recreation areas is contemplated, and also includes protected spaces such as salt flats and natural passage areas of jable (next to La Bufona)," he details.
Public land and transfer of industrial activity
According to the president of the Chamber of Commerce, "another proportional part of these large pieces of land would pass into public hands." "Specifically, 10% of the use of all the space that is being debated would go to the heritage of the Arrecife City Council to solve future solutions for educational, health, social, administrative use, etc," he says.
In this sense, José Torres Fuentes insists that "the capital City Council needs land, because it currently has nothing, except the Ginory plot that has cost it so dearly." "And it is well known that every city council must have land in property to be able to undertake necessary actions if it does not want to mortgage its future," he adds.
Another "unacceptable" factor in the 21st century, according to the head of the chamber entity, is the development of industrial activity within residential neighborhoods, "which cannot be seen as something normal despite being the usual in Arrecife." In this regard, Torres Fuentes considers that "it is necessary to oxygenate the neighborhoods to allow quality of life to citizens, transferring those companies that generate noise, traffic and pollution of any kind, to industrial areas, suitable for this." "Hence the need for the new areas of industrial use contemplated in the Plan to be developed," he points out.
"We are concerned about the interest that may be being pursued"
"In summary, the Supplementary Plan submitted to debate foresees, among other things, ordering within the large bags of land available in the capital, a significant amount of Public Protection Housing, new green spaces and land for municipal public use that would become the property of the City Council," says the president of the Chamber of Commerce, José Torres Fuentes, who believes that "the current government group is putting a stop to all this with its incomprehensible reflections, since they were the ones in charge of giving the guidelines to Gesplan for the development of the Supplementary Plan that they now seem not to recognize."
"We are concerned about the interest they may be pursuing in the face of a tool that will evidently improve the quality of life of citizens. We are concerned about that attitude of prejudice to the common good that only favors them, taking the matter to a dead end so that it does not advance," he concludes.