The technical secretary and the mayor of Yaiza were stuck in 1973, at least as far as urban planning is concerned. The mayor of the southernmost municipality of Lanzarote granted [a new building license on the 5th of last December through a decree->10796] which, on this occasion, grants permission for the construction of 1,008 homes and 220 commercial premises north of the town of Playa Blanca, on land that, according to the current regulations, is not buildable.
The license was granted to the developer Luis Lleó Khunel representing Residencial Costa Roja S.L, who intend to build in the area known as Cortijo de Costa Roja, almost one million square meters to accommodate more than 4,000 new residents, the equivalent to the entire population of Tinajo and, without a doubt, the largest residential complex in all of Playa Blanca.
The report from the City Council's technical office has been based on the Yaiza General Urban Development Plan from 1973 to favorably report on the developer's project, despite the fact that it has been annulled in these aspects by the new legislation governing spatial planning. The City Council has acted as if the Island Spatial Planning Plan (PIOT) did not exist, which since 1991 has been above any municipal regulations regarding land planning.
Despite the final judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands that obliges the Yaiza City Council to inform the Cabildo of all building licenses it grants, the Island Institution has no knowledge of this new permit or of the upcoming construction of the more than 1,200 new buildings that will populate the landscape of Playa Blanca, already saturated by the enormous and controversial building pressure it has suffered in recent years.
At no time did the City Council request the necessary compatibility report from the Cabildo to grant the building license for a work as large as the one it authorized by decree shortly before the end of last year 2006 in a municipality whose obsolete General Urban Development Plan from 1973 has never been adapted to island regulations, that is, the well-known PIOT.
The granting of this license was also not communicated to the Corporation's Plenary Session on February 9, the day on which the last ordinary plenary session was held in the municipality, despite the fact that the mayor had to report on all the decrees he has issued since the last plenary session and that it is an urban operation of this dimension, which will once again put the mayor of Yaiza and his technical office in the spotlight of public opinion.
Multi-million dollar operation
This new complex will be in the northern area of Playa Blanca, located on the LZ-2 road at the corner of Avenida de Femés and has a construction budget that amounts to 69.3 million euros, 11.5 billion of the old pesetas. The granting of the license has brought the City Council's coffers close to 4 million euros in taxes.
According to what is established in the license granted by the mayor José Francisco Reyes, construction will begin six months from the moment it was authorized. Next June, the excavators will begin the works on the 1,008 homes and 220 commercial premises, which must be completed within four years. Thus, in the summer of 2011, more than 4,000 new residents would settle north of Yaiza, a number similar to that of the inhabitants of the municipality of Haría.
Without public services
The 920,000 square meters of land in Cortijo de Costa Roja where this multi-million dollar operation is intended to be carried out are not ordered in any of the partial plans of the municipality, which, as is known since last summer, are also paralyzed by the Cabildo of Lanzarote. It lacks an endowment project, so basic services of electricity, water and sanitation would not reach the new homes.
Despite the sixty lawsuits that the Cabildo maintains with the Yaiza City Council in the last four years, despite the fact that the municipality's PGO has not been adapted to the Island Spatial Planning Plan and despite the fact that all the partial plans of the island, not only of Playa Blanca, are paralyzed by decision of the Plenary Session of the Cabildo taken last November, the mayor has granted the building license with the report issued by the surveyor of the Yaiza technical office, who is already facing a request from the Special Prosecutor for the Environment of the TSJC for imprisonment for five years.
A request that falls on one of the surveyors for having favorably reported the granting of nine licenses for the construction of homes on a rustic farm between the towns of Femés and Las Breñas, applying the General Plan of Yaiza of 1973 against the provisions of the PIOT. A judicial procedure that remains open, in which the Prosecutor's Office also requests 19 years of disqualification for the mayor José Francisco Reyes.