The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has notified this Wednesday the judgment it issued on December 19, 2008, resolving the appeal filed by the entity "Dinosol Supermercados S.L." (successor of Pio Coronado S.A.) against the Decree issued on September 7, 2000, by the then mayor of Arrecife, Manuela Armas (current president of the Cabildo), denying the building permit to the Valterra Shopping Center project that the company intended to execute where the Hiperdino supermarket is currently located in Valterra.
After a detailed analysis of the urban planning regulations applicable to the case, the Court concludes by rejecting the appeal filed by the Hiperdino company because it considers that the General Plan of Arrecife does not allow the installation of large commercial areas in Homogeneous Zone 9 (where a supermarket of the same company is currently located), so it considers that the decision adopted by the then mayor of Arrecife fully complied with the Law and was the correct decision, rejecting, consequently, the request for 15 million euros that the plaintiff also requested as compensation for the damages that the delay in the construction of its shopping center would have caused during all these years.
Three professors
After analyzing the arguments of all parties on the urban planning regulations applicable to the case (in the lawsuit, both the Arrecife City Council and the Lanzarote Business Circle, which made a heated opposition to the aforementioned shopping center, were present as defendants) and analyzing the multiple opinions provided by the appellant in defense of the construction of the shopping center, issued by three eminent professors of Administrative Law (Luciano Parejo, Eduardo García de Enterría and Alfonso González Pérez) and also studying the reports issued in the municipal file endorsing the refusal to build the center (a report from its technical office and an extensive opinion made by the lawyer expert in urban planning, Agustín Domingo Acosta, who rejected the theses presented in the opinions provided by Hiperdino) the Court accepts in its profuse reasoning the legal theses defended in the reports that supported the denial of the license, thus endorsing, with all forcefulness, the impossibility of building the Shopping Center that the appellant intended in that place.
The Chamber summarizes the reasoning contained in the Judgment that settles this controversial case by referring to the arguments that were wielded by the Lanzarote Business Circle throughout the judicial process (entity that throughout the lawsuit carried the weight of the defense of the appealed municipal decree) stating that "as the co-defendant party says, the commercial equipment at the service of the entire population remains outside the generic commercial use (limited or conditioned) that is allowed in an area with industrial construction".
Nine years and 15 million
This resolution concludes a long and complex judicial process that has lasted nine years and in which the appellant not only asked for the license to be granted for the construction of its Shopping Center, but also claimed 15 million euros from the City Council, plus the interest of these nine years that the lawsuit has lasted, for the delay in its concession, from which the City Council of Arrecife is also free.
