As explained by the FCM after the High Court of the Canary Islands published its ruling, the court determines emphatically that the absence of the mandatory compatibility report with the Island Territorial Planning Plan, which the Yaiza City Council should have requested from the Cabildo before granting permission for the construction, implies, by itself, the nullity of the license. According to the Foundation, this ruling "recognizes, therefore, that the PIOT is above municipal planning in tourist areas".
In addition, the ruling annuls the extension of the license that the Yaiza City Council granted on April 9, 2003 because the hotel was not built. The court determines that it cannot be intended "the survival of the license granted to a basic project in 1998, to all the laws that succeeded this Autonomous Community related to the tourist moratorium, nor resurrect previous licenses" without taking into account by the consistory "the current regulations".
At the time the Yaiza City Council granted the extension, it did not verify, as it did in 1998, whether the license for the hotel complied with the PIOT or whether it conformed to the regulations on territorial planning that had been approved between 1998 and 2003, despite being obliged to do so. In addition, the TSJC considers the extension annulled because it was not verified before granting it, whether the works had started at least six months before, as required by law.
Firm criterion that will set a trend
According to the César Manrique Foundation, "we are probably facing the most important ruling" that has been issued to date regarding the lawsuits that both the Cabildo and the FCM maintain in the defense of island planning against municipal plans because "it explicitly strengthens the PIOL as an instrument for regulating the rhythms of tourist growth".
With this ruling, a "firm and unequivocal criterion" issued by the TSJC is established that may set a trend for the future in the dozens of lawsuits that are still unresolved against licenses granted in tourist areas, many of them seen for sentencing, and that will be resolved by the same court. There is already a precedent in which the same criterion was applied and whose ruling was made public in June 2006, in which the license for the construction of the Son Bou apartment hotel, attached to the Hotel Princesa Yaiza in Playa Blanca, was declared null.
This ruling is final since it resolves the appeal filed by the FCM after the Contentious-Administrative Court No. 3 of Las Palmas deemed inadmissible the first appeal filed by the Foundation against the hotel license in Las Coloradas for considering that they had filed it out of time.
The Cabildo highlights the importance of the TSJC ruling
A few hours after the FCM made the ruling public, the Cabildo has spoken through the Minister of Territorial Policy, Mario Pérez, who considered "transcendental" the ruling issued by the High Court of the Canary Islands because "it sets a precedent" for the lawsuits filed by the Cabildo, which are pending resolution.
The content of the ruling will be analyzed and debated this Friday, March 2, in an extraordinary session of the Informative Commission on Territorial Policy and Environment convened by Minister Mario Pérez.
The City Council defends the legality of the hotel
The southern consistory assures that the TSJC has not annulled the license. They affirm that one of the three permits that made the hotel built, has not been annulled. They refer to the permit of January 5, 2001, the day on which the start of the works was authorized. Permit that was delayed on April 9, 2003 by means of an extension granted by the mayor of Yaiza that has been annulled by the TSJC in the ruling made public this Thursday.
