The City Council of Yaiza has announced that it will appeal the ruling that annuls the Supplementary General Plan of the municipality and will ask the Canarian Government, as a co-defendant administration, to do the same. In addition, it anticipates that it will continue to apply this document until there is a final ruling.
“The Supplementary General Planning Plan of Yaiza remains in force, so the processing of the files that are initiated and those that are presented will continue as long as there is no firm judicial pronouncement,” the government group states in a statement.
Regarding the licenses already granted based on that Plan, it maintains that “they are legal acts that grant rights”, so “they will continue to deploy their effects.”
However, the government group has also announced that “it is already studying the drafting of a contracting specification to draft a new Plan,” which this time “will be processed directly by the local Administration.” With this, they affirm that they intend to “update and improve the current one,” which came into force in 2014, and which they defend has “allowed the development of the municipality after living with an obsolete Plan of 41 years of validity, that of 73, which would be the one that would remain in force if Justice ratifies the total annulment ruling.”
Noda's call to the current Deputy Minister
In its press release, the City Council begins by emphasizing that it was this Tuesday when it received the “official” notification of the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, which was advanced this Monday by La Voz de Lanzarote.
In addition, it recalls that the annulled Plan was drafted by the Government of the Canary Islands, although it was then led by the Canarian Coalition and today by the Socialist Party. Now, the mayor, Óscar Noda, hopes that the current regional government will continue to defend this document in court, appealing the ruling before the Supreme Court.
For the moment, Noda affirms that he has already contacted the Deputy Minister of Territorial Planning and Water, Leopoldo Díaz, “to know the will of the Government and advance that the City Council will transfer the express request to the department he directs.”
Negotiation to relocate those roundabouts
Regarding the content of the ruling, the southern government group questions that the Court decides to annul the Plan “due to the indicative design of two roundabouts.” Specifically, the ruling concludes that it contravened a report on roads and highways of the Government of the Canary Islands, in relation to the project of two roundabouts for access to Playa Blanca from Yaiza.
According to the City Council, both the report of the Vice-Ministry of Infrastructure and Planning of the Canary Islands and another issued by the Highways area of the Cabildo were “assumed by the planning, faithfully integrating their considerations.” However, the ruling concludes that what was established in that binding report was not “obeyed”, “which entails the nullity of the Plan.”
“It should be indicated that, at present, these roundabouts are not built,” adds the City Council of Yaiza, which affirms that the three administrations involved (Government of the Canary Islands, Cabildo and City Council) “have agreed on a technical solution for access to the industrial area of Playa Blanca, whose project has already been authorized by the City Council and sent, since May, to the Island Corporation, awaiting its technical opinion.”
In this regard, it maintains that the law “allows projects on roads even in disagreement with the planning”, so it affirms that it is “even more surprised by the meaning and motivation of the resolution.”
A Plan that received dozens of appeals
In its statement, the City Council also emphasizes that the General Plan received “at least 33 appeals”, of which 25 have already been resolved, “this being the only one that sentences its total annulment.” It should be remembered that this ruling is added to another that already partially annulled the document, in relation to the coast, due to the lack of a report from Coasts.
Regarding the one that has been estimated now, the Consistory emphasizes that the plaintiff, Honorio García Bravo, raised twenty grounds for appeal, of which only one has been estimated.
The Consistory refers to some of them in its statement, and especially to the one that denounced that the Plan came to give a kind of “amnesty” to urban offenders, opening the door to legalize constructions already declared illegal.
“This extreme is relevant because some media and agents of society insist on maintaining the biased thesis regarding the fact that the City Council commissioned the drafting of the Plan to legalize hotels; without taking into account and undermining its usefulness as an urban planning tool for sports, educational or housing construction for neighbors in the different locations,” he defends.
Regarding that attempt at “amnesty,” what the ruling indicates is that this is not the area to resolve it. “The ideal mechanism for the repression of such illicit procedure is found in another procedural venue at another time,” the Chamber warns, pointing out that it will be in the execution processes of the judgments issued in their day where “the possible fraud will be detected.”
