Juan Francisco Rosa was fully "aware" that the regulations prevented the construction of a new winery in La Geria (much less accompanied by a restaurant, a store and other annexes), and to achieve this he devised a "plan" based on a "continuous and premeditated fiction", which had the permissiveness and even the alleged complicity of all the administrations involved.
This is highlighted by the order that ends the investigation of the case, which will go to trial with 18 defendants (including the company BTL as a legal entity). In that order, Judge Silvia Muñoz recounts the inexplicable chronology of the construction of this winery and all its annexes in a protected space, where it could not have been authorized.
"To facilitate the achievement of the plan", explains the judge, "it started from a house" pre-existing "of ethnographic value, popularly known as the house of the Cabreras". However, neither the house nor the farm on which Stratvs sits belonged (nor belong) to Juan Francisco Rosa. In fact, Rosa's name does not even appear in the application for the first permits. The one who requested them was the wife of the architect of Stratvs, Miguel Ángel Armas Matallana. Through his family, Armas had part of the ownership of the farm. The rest belongs to other owners, among whom are several members of the Negrín family, who appeared in this case after denouncing that their land was usurped when the winery was built.
According to the judge, Rosa not only benefited economically from the construction of Stratvs, which would have brought him "minimum income of one million euros per year", but also by obtaining "excavation material of economic value (picón or rofe)" during the construction of the winery, "with the consequent economic damage to the legitimate owners". And to that we must add that instead of rehabilitating the house, he demolished it, even though he was not even the owner.
The administration notified Rosa, even though he was not listed as the promoter
According to the judge, Rosa "colluded" with Armas Matallana to use that pre-existing house to obtain the first permit, with the excuse of rehabilitating the house. Later, that first request, which was for the "restoration of housing and warehouse", was "intentionally and directed mutating, expanding its space and functions", without "knowledge and consent" of Armas' wife, Piedad del Río, who appeared as the signatory of the request ("her signature was falsified", the architect declared in court).
In addition, although the permits were requested in her name, the administration responded directly to Juan Francisco Rosa, who was the "hidden promoter of the construction". In fact, from the first request to the Government of the Canary Islands, it was stated that administrative notifications would be made on Fajardo Street in Arrecife, where Galerías Rosa, S.L. is located.
Precisely to that address the Government of the Canary Islands went to notify Rosa of its favorable resolution, just the day after signing it. And all this, despite the fact that his "consideration as an administrative interested party" was not recorded, nor did he hold "any representation" of the one who appeared as the applicant for the permit.
A file full of "false data"
In addition to building Stratvs on land that did not even belong to Rosa, and which was used because according to the judge "it was the only location that lent itself to the continuous and premeditated fiction of rehabilitating an old winery (which did not exist)", the order recounts another long list of false data and documents that were provided in the different files to process the permits.
"Knowing that the real data would not facilitate the granting of the authorization on rustic land, data are included whose discrepancy with reality was known and sought by the promoter, with the knowledge and agreement of the architect", the judge points out. "As an example", the order indicates that "in the descriptive report of the project it is stated that the owner of the house to be rehabilitated is Doña Piedad del Rio, which is not true"; that "the size of the house to be restored was deliberately and fictitiously increased"; that "a registration file corresponding to a different cadastral plot, on which no house is located, was also attached"; and that "false data were introduced regarding the destination of the warehouse to be built". All this data was, according to the judge, "easily verifiable by the administration receiving the documentation", but "intentionally" did not verify them.
In addition, none of the administrations involved acted either when what was built did not conform in any way to what had been authorized. On the one hand, because even the house was demolished that was supposedly going to be rehabilitated and a new one of greater size was built. On the other hand, because the authorized area was 900 square meters, and the Stratvs complex has a total of more than 12,000.
Authorizations despite negative reports
In her order, the judge separates the different "phases" in which the administrations intervened, giving the green light to a project that could not be authorized. And in all of them, the permits were granted despite the existence of negative reports. In addition, the veracity of the documentation presented by the promoter was not verified, regulations in force were "omitted" "knowingly" and permits were delivered despite knowing that information was missing in the files.
Even, in the case of the first authorization from the Government of the Canary Islands, the then head of authorizations of the Ministry of Territorial Planning, Rafael Pérez Marrero, "deliberately expanded the object requested by the alleged interested party", which did not refer to a winery, but to the rehabilitation of a house and a warehouse. However, Pérez Marrero reported in favor of authorizing the construction of an underground warehouse of 900 square meters, "corresponding to an old winery", when "there was no winery in the place, much less an old one", the judge emphasizes. Marrero, who was also charged, died while the investigation of the case was being carried out, so he is not on the list of defendants.
Like this report, in which according to the judge the technician "omitted" to refer to the current planning, in all the administrations involved there are several more similar, reporting favorably but ignoring data or regulations. However, the opinions that were against were ignored.
In the resolution itself in which he authorized the works, the then Director General of Urban Planning of the Canary Islands, Juan Cesar Muñoz Sosa, acknowledges that "a report has been requested from the Illustrious City Council of Yaiza but no response has been received; a report has been requested from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the Government of the Canary Islands, which reports unfavorably to the construction of a warehouse and a report has been requested from the Island Council of Lanzarote (Environmental Service) who considers reporting that this type of activity is incompatible with the conservation of this land classified as Rustic Protection".
The same thing happened later when the then mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, granted the building permit in 1999, even having a report against it from the then secretary of the Consistory, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes (who despite this is charged, because he later reported in favor of granting Stratvs the classified activity license to authorize the opening). Although he obtained the license, Rosa had not even presented the execution project.
Yaiza ordered the suspension of the works
The license granted by the City Council gave a period of six months for the start of the work and 24 months for its completion, but even that was not met. In fact, the construction of Stratvs began four years later, in 2003, when it no longer had a building permit in force. And all this, "with the knowledge and approval of the Public Administrations, in particular the City Council of Yaiza", according to the judge.
In April of that year 2003, the surveyor of Yaiza Alfredo Morales informed the City Council that the works were being carried out without having presented an execution project, and Reyes signed a decree ordering the suspension of the works, which "was notified to the person in charge of the work". However, "it was never fulfilled" and the then mayor, according to the judge, "omitted any type of action that would prevent" the continuation of the works or that would "sanction what had already been done".
It was in June 2003 when Rosa presented the execution project, signed by Miguel Ángel Matallanas, in which according to the judge "false data are contained". Two years later, in June 2005, when the works were almost finished, an employee of Rosa, "attributing the representation" of the alleged applicant for the permits, requested an extension of the license granted in 1999. Only a few days later, "despite being able to objectively, clearly and flagrantly verify that the works had been carried out without respecting the terms (term, conditions, location…) of the initial license", Reyes extended that license. To do this, the mayor signed two decrees in which, for the first time, the name of Rosa appeared. In one of them, the license for "restoration of housing and construction of a basement-warehouse" is extended and transferred to Don Juan Francisco Rosa Marrero. In the other, the transfer is made to "Juan Fransciso Rosa e Hijos, S.L."
That same month, the Councilor for Urban Planning José Antonio Rodríguez, acting as accidental mayor, issued a third decree "by which the word winery is intentionally included on the previous ones issued by Mr. Reyes", which did not appear in the other two.
Yaiza set "conditions" that he never fulfilled or monitored
Already under the Mayoralty of Gladys Acuña, the City Council also granted Stratvs the classified activity license, in a meeting of the Governing Board held on December 19, 2008. Both the secretary and the councilors participating in that meeting are charged and will go to trial since, according to the judge, they voted in favor of granting the license "despite knowing what was not authorized both of the installation in its magnitude, as in its activity", and "knowing that the construction already exceeded and in much what was authorized in 1999, and that the activity itself, could not be authorized".
In fact, the judge maintains that precisely for that reason "they introduced two conditions", although they knew that "they would not carry them out or intentionally control them". In fact, they did not comply with them either before or after granting the license. One of them involved the visit of the competent technicians, "who should report on the adequacy of the premises to the project presented and, if necessary, corrective measures", but "no member of the Board, nor the Mayor gave the order to make an inspection visit". The second of the conditions was that the entity must be in possession of the discharge authorization granted by the Island Water Council, "the latter knowing that despite lacking it, they were not going to adopt any measure either".
According to the judge, with that they intended to "formally save the obstacle that meant knowing" reports from Public Health from 2006 until December 2008, warning that the facilities "did not comply with the regulations regarding the evacuation of wastewater".
Thus, the order refers to different reports sent to the Consistory, which according to the judge demonstrate that "the City Council knew at the time of granting the classified activity license the existence of an industry in operation not only limited to the activity of winery, but also of store and restoration, as well as the unauthorized discharges and, despite this, omitting in a patent, clear and unobjectionable way, all type of control, granted the classified activity license".
To all this, we must add the permits that Stratvs later obtained from the Island Water Council for its discharge system, despite the fact that there were reports warning of the contamination; as well as the works that Rosa subsequently continued to carry out in the Stratvs complex; and also the rest of the crimes that the judge imputes to Rosa and Armas Matallana. Among them, even, cadastral alterations to "simulate" that Stratvs was based on another farm that the businessman acquired expressly for it. That farm, with hardly any value, was used by Rosa as a guarantee of debts before the administration, pretending that what he was putting as a guarantee was the winery.