The PP of Lanzarote will bring to the island's town halls a proposal for a municipal ordinance to regulate the use of motorhomes, caravans, and campers, with the aim of ordering their parking, limiting free camping, and establishing designated areas that guarantee coexistence and the protection of public space.
The initiative seeks to respond to the growth that this type of tourism and leisure has experienced since the pandemic, as well as to the lack of homogeneous regulation among municipalities, which has generated pressure situations in different points of the island territory.
“It is about responding to a reality that has been increasing in Lanzarote over the years, and generally in all the islands,” said the president of the PP of Lanzarote, Astrid Pérez, who defended that the objective of the proposal “is not to restrict this type of tourism, but to order it and provide it with legal certainty”.
In this regard, he defends the need to provide municipalities with tools that allow them to manage this activity "sustainably" because, he states, "it also benefits the local economy." Pérez emphasizes that the priority is to "organize, guarantee coexistence, and protect our natural and urban spaces."
II Plan of Active Municipalities of the Canary Islands
The ordinance, which will be presented via motion in the island's City Councils and will be led by corporations governed by the Popular Party, is part of the II Plan of Active Municipalities recently presented by the president of the PP of the Canary Islands and vice president of the regional Government, Manuel Dominguez, who has confirmed that the Executive is working on the approval of the Regulation of Outdoor Tourist Accommodation Establishments. A document that will mark a before and after by ordering for the first time in the Canary Islands the conditions for campsites, motorhome areas, overnight stays, and camping in isolated buildings.
Astrid Pérez highlights that, despite being an activity that gains more followers every day, motorhome and camper tourism has not yet had clear recognition as a tourist activity in the Canary Islands, which "has generated legal uncertainty and has also limited the development of adapted public and private infrastructure." "The new regulatory framework will give us the opportunity to lead from the municipalities the adaptation to a reality that is already present on all islands," she has pointed out.
The popular plan proposes that local governments promote the identification of suitable land and spaces for this type of activity, as well as the creation of municipal areas enabled for motorhomes and campers, equipped with basic services such as water points, grey water disposal, and waste management.
Likewise, it is proposed to adapt the municipal urban planning to the new regulatory framework to expressly include these uses as compatible in certain rustic or tourist lands, favoring sustainable and low environmental impact projects.