Nearly three hundred residents of Tahíche attended the meeting last Friday with the government team of the Teguise City Council and the Island Councilor for Public Works, Fabián Martín. A meeting that was joined by a group of new residents affected by the internal roads of the project, who learned just a week ago that they were going to be expropriated, after their names were published in the BOP in a new list of those affected. In total there are already 226 people affected by the layout of the new road.
Many of those residents attended a meeting this Monday with the mayor of Teguise, to which they say that the mayor did not attend, nor did other councilors from the government team. The spokesperson for those affected, Saro González, expresses the discomfort of the residents, who state that "now we can only trust that Justice will resolve this problem, given that we have lost confidence in politicians, who say they support us but, however, do nothing to help us".
In fact, González maintains that in the meeting on Friday, "the impression of the residents was of absolute surprise, because the municipal representatives came to agree with us on what we had already warned, which is none other than that the town of Tahíche will be destroyed and cut off."
According to the residents, there are several streets on both sides of the town, on the edges of the road, that will be dead ends, and almost ten houses in the town that will be partially or totally demolished. For that reason, they asked the mayor that the internal roads not be executed. Now, they say "we have to wait because if the City Council does not allow those roads to be executed, the road cannot be built either." For the residents, something is clear, "if they modify the roads, we have no way out, the accesses to the general road are closed."
For his part, the CC councilor in the Teguise City Council, Domingo Cejas, who attended the meeting with the residents, missed a clear and forceful response from the mayor to the claims of those affected. Cejas understands that it is the power of the City Council to decide on those roads since they are part of the municipal planning and it is the Corporation that should give guarantees to the residents of those streets.
Coalición Canaria understands that "those internal streets should not be touched" and for this, according to Cejas, all that is needed is for the City Council and the residents to initiate a procedure by sending a letter to the Ministry so that those roads are de-affected. In that sense, Domingo Cejas showed a letter from the Ministry of Public Works of the General Technical Secretariat in which it is assured: "In view of the information published regarding the forced expropriation of the LZ-1 road duplication file, LZ-3 Arrecife-Tahíche ring road section, it is pleased to inform that the list of assets and rights subject to public information is a faithful reflection of the approved project. However, and having verified the physical reality with the project, it is detected that the properties included in the streets Garcilaso de la Vega, Espronceda, Hugo Gracia and others will be subject to de-affection as the road is executed and it is not convenient to affect any surface, considering these roads as urban roads, a circumstance that will be reflected in the resolution of the allegations, with the prior agreement of the Teguise City Council to this proposal. The present list may be extended if the individual study so requires."
The nationalist councilor also explained that the Government has allocated nearly 12 million euros for the expropriation of the almost 13 hectares of land that are affected by the project. Most of that land, Cejas points out, "is urban in nature and the square meter will be paid at 120 euros, unless they are already urbanized, in which case the amount is much higher."
Cejas continues to defend the duplication project and considers it necessary given that for the councilor, "the streets of Tahíche cannot continue to support the large number of cars that travel through them every day, in an attempt to avoid the traffic jams that form on the current road to Arrecife."
