Perhaps some may have doubts about whether this is the best plan for Arrecife, but what I am clear about is that the document of the Supplementary Urban Planning Plan is what will allow the island's capital not to stagnate, to continue developing economically, commercially and touristically, and to create jobs.
Once again, political changes are to blame, those that trip us up and do not allow Arrecife's planning to go ahead as planned, while other municipalities take advantage of the situation and carry out their industrial and commercial development projects.
This situation is not new, it seems that as far as the General Plan of Arrecife is concerned, we live in a continuous déjà vu. You only have to look back and review what has happened in this city since the 90s.
This Monday, August 22, marked two years since the Supplementary General Planning Plan (PGO) of Arrecife was initially approved by the Ministry of Territorial Policy of the Government of the Canary Islands. Approval that, as will be recalled, also meant the suspension of the granting of licenses for projects that did not conform to future municipal planning for two years.
Thus, since August 2014, the City Council could only authorize projects that were compatible with both the General Plan in force (the basic Adaptation of 2004) and the new planning prepared by the public company Gesplan, (since, given the impossibility on the part of the Consistory to carry it out in April 2013, the powers to process and approve the supplementary PGO were transferred to the Ministry of Territorial Policy).
The document was submitted to public consultation and the allegations presented by residents, groups, associations, political formations, etc. and the need to respond to all of them, led the drafting team to propose a series of important changes that require a new initial approval of the document and another period of public information.
History repeats itself. The deadlines are met again and we do not have a new General Plan, although I trust in the responsibility of those who co-govern with Coalición Canaria-PNC.
And it should not take longer, because the new initial approval document is already finalized by Gesplan. In fact, it was only a week ago that the aforementioned document was sent to the Ministry of Territorial Policy. The technical part is finished, it has the approval of the technicians and I trust, as I said before, in the responsibility of the political part because neither Arrecife nor the people of Arrecife can afford a halt in the economic and social development of the city.
I hope this is the case because the process is not over; after the initial approval, the next step will be to take the document back to all the neighborhoods of Arrecife as was done in 2011 with its Progress and it will be explained again to the residents what are the steps to present allegations.
The future of Arrecife is in our hands, that we have an orderly city, that can grow economically, touristically, commercially and socially depends on not putting more obstacles or more impediments. Otherwise, other municipalities will continue to benefit.
*Samuel Martín Morera, Councilor for Urban Planning of the Arrecife City Council.