The Yaiza City Council has announced that in compliance with the latest court order declaring the Papagayo Arena hotel illegal, it will “require” the property to “comply” with that resolution and demolish the part of the building that occupies a public road, leaving “free and clear” that road to the sea. “It is not about demolishing the entire hotel,” the Council specifies in reference to this ruling, which annulled the municipal decree that allowed the two plots to be grouped together, eliminating that road.
The rest of the hotel's non-compliance issues are being resolved before the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, which annulled the building permits. In this regard, the City Council recalls that the Papagayo Arena legalization file that has been processed for years is “supervised” by that Court, and that “an report from the Ministry of the Environment must also be obtained”, because the current General Plan was also annulled in relation to the Coasts Law, and therefore its powers are suspended in that area.
“The hotel must comply with the planning,” the City Council maintains in a statement issued this Thursday, after the order was made public that agrees with the arguments put forward by the Cabildo and the Urban Transparency association, and dismisses those of the City Council and the hotel property.
In that press release, the Council recalls that it already issued a technical report informing the property that it should demolish a part of the road layout occupied by rooms, and adds that the property presented “a demolition project for a part, specifically, two floors of the reception, and demolitions of facilities”. That contravened this ruling that the Court has now ordered to be executed. “According to the latest act, the passage must be free throughout its entire route, and Yaiza will demand this from the property, requiring it to expand the demolition project. Therefore, the City Council will not only reiterate, but will expand the request to the property, because it already warned them that it was not complying and that it should present a demolition project and justification of the regulations,” the Council adds.
In addition, it defends its “transparency policy” with the execution of hotel rulings and regrets that “a murky image of the Yaiza City Council is being conveyed, which seems to be singled out for failing to comply with or consenting to acts outside the law.”
Regarding the Papagayo Arena, which in addition to the invasion of that road has other pending non-compliance issues to resolve, it adds that “even if the entire hotel were demolished, today it is a hotel plot of 37,400 square meters, of which 26,723 square meters are buildable with 747 tourist places”. Thus, it insists that “to comply with current planning, the entire hotel would not have to be demolished”; adding that “if the old Partial Plan were applied, it also had a hotel use and with a buildability and places similar to the current planning”.
Although the Cabildo and the City Council have maintained a tough pulse in the courts within the framework of the execution of this ruling for the occupation of the road, the City Council affirms that “it does not understand this or any case as a pulse with another public administration or private entity, including the hotel property”.
“What prevails and must prevail is compliance with the law, that is, planning. Neither in this matter, nor in any other, has the Yaiza City Council opposed the execution of a ruling,” it defends. “The technical-legal situation is complex and, on occasions, the casuistry in which the Administration finds itself is exposed to the Courts, but it has never opposed the execution of a ruling,” it adds, thus justifying some of its actions in those procedures.
