The Yaiza Plenary approved this Thursday, with the sole abstention of the PP, the file that orders the eviction of 31,000 square meters of public land in Playa Blanca, occupied among other things with Juan Francisco Rosa's Kikoland. The resolution gives the businessman eight days, extendable by five more, to leave the facilities and return that land to the City Council.
"It is curious that when talking about neighborhood interests, sometimes people tear their clothes, but when you really have to face certain sectors, it seems that I don't know if fear or doubts set in," said the mayor, Óscar Noda, reproaching the vote of the Popular Party. "This is an issue that should have unanimity. There is a final judgment and there has been an injustice towards the residents of Yaiza," Noda recalled.
The occupation of that land occurred in 2004 under an agreement that is currently also being investigated in criminal proceedings, and that was signed by the former mayor, José Francisco Reyes. For its part, the City Council began years ago the procedures to recover that land. The first step was to declare the agreement null, by which Reyes ceded public land without competition, without any type of report and without establishing any type of payment to the City Council. The municipal decision to invalidate that agreement, endorsed by a report from the Advisory Council, was appealed by Juan Francisco Rosa, but two judgments ruled in favor of the City Council and the Supreme Court did not even admit the businessman's last appeal.
Now, the Plenary has initiated the procedure to proceed with the eviction. "Once notified, they have eight days to voluntarily vacate the facilities. If they don't, there are five more days of extension," the mayor specified. After that period of 13 days, if the businessman does not hand over the land, the issue would return to the Plenary, "to take possession of the facilities," and Rosa would have to "assume the expenses that arise, in the cases in which the delivery of the property is not voluntary."
However, through the media outlet of his property, the businessman has already announced that he will file a new appeal against this eviction order. "They are experts in appealing. I sincerely don't know if they will appeal the notification or the agreement of the Plenary. I don't know if it has a way of appeal or not, but I imagine they will try to continue appealing everything they can," the mayor said in this regard, who has stated that when that moment comes they will do "what the jurists" of the City Council say. "We will go our own way. We are clear that we have to recover that area and unless a judge comes and tells us to stop, we are not going to stop," he assured.
Afterwards, once the City Council recovers that area, the intention is to put its concession out to tender, to "put things in their place", since that public land, which should be a green area for the enjoyment of the residents, has been occupied for a decade and a half with a private business that did not pay anything to the City Council for that occupation.
In addition to the plot where the Kikoland is located, there are two others that were illegally ceded under the agreement signed by Reyes. One of them is located on the other side of the Princesa Yaiza, between the hotel and the Papagayo shopping center - where nothing was ever installed - and the other was occupied by the Hotel Hesperia Playa Dorada with a minigolf. Thus, the eviction order also affects the company Infond SA, owner of the hotel, although in this case the mayor has specified that the minigolf has been abandoned for years. "It stayed there and is neither being maintained nor being taken care of," he said.
"Our action has always been in defense of municipal interests, as is our obligation, and complying step by step with all the pertinent legal instances. Now we notify the individuals hoping that they comply with the eviction," added Óscar Noda.
The motion approved this Thursday in the Plenary came from the government group formed by UpY and CC, and had the support of the PSOE, Lanzarote en Pie - Sí Podemos and Ciudadanos, and the abstention of the PP. The Yaiza City Council initiated in September 2016 the procedure for the ex officio review of the agreement signed in 2004 between the Institution and the company Getsu Non Denwa by which the municipality ceded for fifty years and free of charge the right to use the three plots in question, and with this agreement the last step to recover that land begins.