"Ignoring the required procedures, they managed to alter the natural environment, contrary to the applicable urban planning regulations, creating a de facto situation that is subsequently intended to be used as a basis ...
"Ignoring the required procedures, they managed to alter the natural environment, contrary to the applicable urban planning regulations, creating a de facto situation that is subsequently intended to be used as an essential basis to legally consolidate said situation, both in the new General Plan that is intended to be approved (?), regularizing the constructions that were carried out irregularly, as well as in the future PIOT".
The phrase, which seems to reflect what has happened and what could happen with the urban planning illegalities committed in Yaiza, is part of a ruling by the Provincial Court of Las Palmas made public this Thursday, which has once again condemned the City Council secretary, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, and the technical architect, Pablo Carrasco Cabrera, for a continued crime of urban planning prevarication, in the granting of licenses that allowed the construction of nine single-family homes on rustic land between Las Breñas and Femés.
It was a "minor" trial, compared to those still pending for the technicians and the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, but the truth is that the content of the ruling is devastating for the defense strategy that they have all maintained in recent years.
On the one hand, it maintains that "the defensive deployment used in this process is surprising, in order to try to support their particular point of view, in clear contrast to what was resolved by the contentious jurisdiction". And it is that in this case, as with the illegal hotels of Playa Blanca, the licenses had already been annulled by the courts, but the defense, represented by Felipe Fernández Camero and two of his sons, focused a large part of the strategy on trying to defend that the land on which the houses were built was not rustic.
To this end, he presented reports from experts who testified during the trial, but the ruling makes it clear that "it finds no solid basis for their conclusions". And above all, it emphasizes that having firm rulings from the Contentious-Administrative Courts, "the criterion to the contrary expressed by the parties is absolutely irrelevant".
That is, no matter how much they continue to insist on splashing around and tarnishing reality, what is rustic is rustic, and what is illegal is illegal. The courts have already made that clear, and what this trial was about is not analyzing the licenses, but the possible commission of crimes by those who granted them and those who reported favorably.
On this occasion, the former mayor of Yaiza, who already has a firm conviction for prevarication, has been acquitted, but he still has a tough judicial road ahead. And it is that although on many occasions (one already judged and convicted, and others pending trial), he has granted licenses even with negative reports, this time the Provincial Court considers that there is a margin of doubt as to whether or not he knew the real situation of the property when he granted the licenses, precisely because he had favorable reports from the technicians who sat on the bench with him.
In the ruling, the Provincial Court points out that one of the technicians reported favorably to the licenses based on a municipal plan that was not approved or published, "with awareness and willingness not to put any inconvenience to the mayor so that he could authorize the action for which a license was requested". An axis on which the case of the alleged plot for the massive granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca revolves, in which the prosecution maintains that the former mayor and certain technicians acted in a coordinated manner to circumvent the law and collect alleged bribes, with the advice of certain lawyers, also charged in that case.
During the trial for the Las Breñas licenses, the prosecutor spoke of "legal engineering" on the part of the defense. And it is that while Reyes said that he did not understand these things and that "of the pile of papers that they put in front of him, he read some and others not"; the technical architect Pablo Carrasco alleged that he made technical reports and without legal knowledge; and the secretary, who precisely had to ensure compliance with the law, maintained that his reports were "procedural" and "processing" (let's say, "merely illustrative", as he said in the previous trial). And the secretary could not explain, according to the ruling, why in some reports he did warn the mayor of the need to request compatibility reports with the PIOT from the Cabildo, and in all the others he did not.
At least, let's hope that they have learned that lesson, considering that both Bartolomé Fuentes and Carrasco continue in their positions in the Yaiza City Council, because the mayoress considers that they are still assisted by the "presumption of innocence".
Of course, the ruling is also devastating in this regard, and maintains that "omitting the procedural requirements", such as the obligation to request a compatibility report with the PIOT from the Cabildo, means eliminating "the mechanisms that are established precisely to ensure that their decision is subject to the purposes established by law". Come on, if they didn't ask for the "paper", it was deliberately, in order to be able to skip the legality.
It is one more of the coincidences that can be found between this cause and the investigation opened in the criminal proceedings for illegal hotels. And not only of what has been done so far, but of what can be done in the future.
In this sense, in the Las Breñas ruling, the Provincial Court points out that in "a tortuous interpretation of the urban planning regulations in force, put at the particularized service of interests alien to the public function", they have created a "de facto" situation skipping the rules, to then force their legalization with changes in the planning. Something that maintains that "manifestly harms the general interest". Of course, it warns that no matter how much the law is changed to accommodate illegality, that "does not eliminate the criminal reproach that those who have unfairly promoted that irregular consolidation may deserve". That is, there can be no impunity, because the general interest has been harmed.