The future of the Port of Arrecife and the coastline of the capital as well as a large part of the socio-economic development of the city is in the hands of three documents that determine the infrastructures to be executed and the use of the land of port influence. The citizens and groups of Arrecife have two months to study and submit allegations to the Special Plan of the Port of Arrecife (PEPA), approved this week and which can be consulted at the office of the Port Authority located in Los Mármoles.
The mayoress of the capital said that the PEPA is practically the General Plan of the Port. María Isabel Déniz explained to La Voz that the City Council does not have the capacity, because the legislation prevents it, to include the ordering of the maritime port land in the General Urban Planning Plan, but a separate document must be made. Thus, it contemplates the uses of the plots of the public port domain. For example, the plot of the new Police Station located in Puerto Naos already has a defined use. Likewise, the PEPA will determine what surface will be occupied in the adjacent plots, their height and of course their uses, whether commercial, cultural or sports. "The Special Plan is the ordering of all the plots", commented the mayoress, who hopes that the allegations will have a constructive will.
For its part, the Port Master Plan, valued at more than 110 million euros, is the infrastructure project. It includes an economic assessment and a feasibility study of works such as the new cruise ship dock, the marina and all the investments of the Port - City action. The Master Plan, among other things, determines how wide the dike will be and whether there will be filling, and what will be opened to improve traffic in the Marina de Arrecife.
The other document is the Arrecife Port Utilization Plan (PUPA). This is nothing more than the forecast, in broad terms, of the different port uses, that is, it is not about regulating the urban use of port spaces but more simply about determining how port activities will be distributed within the port area, without this instrument of sectorial planning being able to replace the urban planning that corresponds to the PEPA. The PUPA sets the planned uses for each different area of the port and justifies the need or convenience of these uses, which naturally leads to the delimitation of the service area, that is, to the definition of the public port domain.
Objectives of the PEPA
Once the clarity on the three documents is made. The main objective of the Special Plan, according to the detected problems and the estimated potentialities, is, on the one hand, to provide
the service area with an ordering that optimizes the functional efficiency of port operations, which implies: capable accesses and an efficient internal road structure, sufficient ordered land to cover the demands in the medium term and enable its solution in the long term, adequate distribution of activities and functions and regulatory flexibility that allows the adaptation of the physical framework to the changing demands associated with maritime traffic.
And on the other hand, to achieve the maximum Port-City integration to: increase the possibilities of citizen use of the port coastal space, enhance the maximum urban integration of the facilities for the cruise scale, establish regulations that minimize the landscape impact of port buildings and facilities and revitalize the maritime facade of Arrecife, within the service area, creating a visitor reception center, with cultural facilities and adequate information services, with establishments
suitable commercial and leisure facilities.
Qualification of the areas
The Special Plan qualifies the different areas that constitute the service area as follows: the whole of the Port of Los Mármoles, except for the plot located at its beginning and another reserved for passengers, which includes the Maritime Station, the fishing dock and the plots behind it, are classified as Commercial Use.
The plot located at the beginning of the Port of Los Mármoles, where the offices of the Port Authority, Customs and users are located; and the plots belonging to the Nautical-Fishing School, the sports facilities of the City Council and the Arrecife Yacht Club, are classified as Administrative-Commercial Use.
The plot corresponding to the passenger maritime station, on the Los Mármoles dock, is classified as Passenger Use. The slipways located in the Los Mármoles cove and on the Naos dike and the repair dock are classified as Naval Repair Use.
The areas located around the old commercial dock and the port of Naos are classified as Nautical-Sports Use. And to make the fishing activity in the Naos dock compatible with the aforementioned use, the qualification of Nautical-Sports-Fishing Use is defined for this area.
Likewise, the Special Plan defines an internal road network to the port and establishes specific urban parameters for the various plots into which the service area is divided (maximum building height, maximum occupied area, setbacks, buildability, etc).
