The Superior Court of Justice has already executed the ruling regarding the Natura Palace hotel in Playa Blanca, rejecting the writings presented by the Cabildo and the César Manrique Foundation, which opposed the legalization agreed by the Yaiza City Council. The order of the Second Section of the Administrative Litigation Chamber was issued last March but was not notified to the parties until a few days ago, almost seven months later, and no ordinary appeals are possible against it
"Justice reminds us that we cannot eternalize urban problems,” said the mayor, Óscar Noda, referring to the two entities that objected to the municipal resolution before the courts. In addition to celebrating this judicial resolution, Noda has made a "call for frank dialogue based on the principle of legality" - which he assures is "non-negotiable" for his government group - and "the will to provide a solution to inherited urban conflicts with the current Yaiza Supplementary General Planning Plan in hand", which he considers to be "what society demands”.
"The general public knows that we have been completely transparent in communicating all municipal resolutions on the granting or denial of licenses to hotels that were annulled by the courts before the current General Plan, that of 2014. We not only communicate a summary of each case, but we also send the media the resolution with the complete technical documentation of the files,” the mayor defends.
Regarding the TSJC order, he considers it to be "forceful", stating that "all the argumentation" of the FCM, which was shared by the Cabildo, "rests on the affirmation that with the General Plan in force at the time, legalization would become impossible, but such an affirmation is devoid of technical evidentiary basis, in contrast to the solidity of the technical report of the municipal architect, which is generous in data, plans, graphs and photographs”.
Specifically, what the Foundation alleged is that the City Council opted for "the policy of fait accompli", waiting for the drafting of a new General Plan "to then legalize the work", which it understands violates the law. In addition, it added that even with the new document, there are parameters that are still not met to grant a new license.
However, the TSJC settles both allegations by responding that there is a "contradiction" when "invoking" the new Plan to warn of non-compliance, "and then denying all value to that urban planning instrument".
"Decisive data from the visit of the municipal architect to the hotel facility"
From the Yaiza government group, they emphasize that the order also highlights that "the municipal report, of a favorable nature, includes the decisive data of the visit of the municipal architect to the hotel facility, verifying that a part of the construction has been eliminated, which is verified in the report by including two orthophotos that demonstrate it, verifying the previous one, where the demolished building was and the new one, where it is no longer, and details the adjustment to the current General Plan, specifying with a profusion of technical details and figures”.
In May 2018, the Yaiza City Council favorably reported the legalization and granting of a building permit for the four-star Natura Palace hotel at the request of the company Yaiza Beach S.A, understanding that the building already conformed "to the parameters established in the Yaiza General Plan, after compliance with the applicable sectoral tourism regulations".
"At that time, the report of the municipal technical services concluded that the buildings defined in the documentation provided conformed to what was permitted by the General Plan, an extreme that the TSJC now ratifies", they emphasize from the Consistory, which underlines that "the Yaiza City Council promptly informs the Justice about all the files of lodging establishments with annulled licenses, recalling that the Institution is obliged to execute the judgments, requiring the interested party to request the legalization of the building if it had not initiated it".
The mayor of Yaiza has also publicly thanked "the commitment of the Municipal Technical Office because despite the large volume of work they have been able in these years to continue with the day-to-day requests for new licenses, combining it with the numerous legalization files that, in addition to carrying out arduous procedures, are subject to the pressure that they will be audited by third parties and by the courts”.