There are two circumstances that coincide at this moment in Arrecife: elections are approaching and we are getting closer and closer to completing the final approval of a planning document that our city has been waiting for for more than thirty years.
And it seems that this coincidence has suddenly awakened an enormous interest from the Socialist Party of Lanzarote in the urban planning of our capital.
Among its leaders and its spokespeople in Arrecife, every report, every procedure, and every step forward of the Plan has become a new opportunity to launch alarmist headlines, sow doubts, and present as a threat what is good news for the city.
The curious thing is that this enthusiasm for participating in the urban planning future of Arrecife comes precisely when the procedure is in its final stretch.
Because it is worth remembering something that some seem to have forgotten: the time to debate, propose, and improve this document did not begin yesterday.
There have been years of work, two public exhibitions, and opportunities to study the Plan, submit allegations, propose alternatives, and contribute to improving its content. And the PSOE, moreover, has held government responsibilities during part of that time.
Therefore, it would be reasonable for them to explain what proposals they made then, what alternatives they defended, and what they did from their institutional responsibilities to contribute to Arrecife being able to have updated planning.
The final approval is not a new public exhibition nor an invitation to start from scratch every time someone discovers that elections are approaching.
It is the culmination of a procedure that has had its participation procedures and must conclude with all technical and legal guarantees.
And behind so much noise there is a much more important issue.
The time of urban planning uncertainty is running out. And it does not seem that everyone receives the news with the same enthusiasm.
For decades, Arrecife has had to live with an urban planning situation that has generated insecurity, delayed investments, hindered housing construction, and conditioned the development of entire neighborhoods.
A situation in which what for any neighbor could become a real administrative labyrinth was much easier to face for those who had financial resources, specialized knowledge, or professional advice.
Because when the rules are not clear enough, not everyone plays with the same cards.
And it would be naive to think that decades of urbanistic uncertainty have had the same economic consequences for everyone.
While many families have waited for years to resolve problems with their homes or properties, the complexity of the system has also generated business opportunities for certain professional and economic sectors.
This forces us to reflect and examine the political responsibilities of those who governed during a large part of that period.
It is striking that the PSOE intends to present itself now as the great defender of legal certainty and the territory without offering a sufficiently clear assessment of its own urbanistic decisions.
What solutions they provided, what problems they solved, and why Arrecife has reached this point without updated planning are questions that deserve answers.
Because some of us remember all too well a time when, faced with certain urbanistic problems, residents ended up seeking answers in private offices instead of finding them clearly in public administrations. Perhaps that was the objective?
And that is precisely what we must overcome.
The rules that govern a city must be public, clear, and equal for everyone, and the decisions must correspond to those who legally have that responsibility.
The future of Arrecife cannot depend on which door is knocked on, but on what the rule says.
But let's get to the important part. Let's talk about the Plan. The one we are actually processing, not the one depicted in certain political statements.
Let's talk about a proposal that raises the reserve of protected housing from 10% to 30% on certain developable land. That is, it triples that reserve to help ensure that Arrecife's growth also offers opportunities to families and young people who today have enormous difficulties accessing housing.
Let's talk about reviewing and standardizing heights in different areas of the city, especially in neighborhoods in the north and around the Rambla Medular, where increases of two or three floors are contemplated depending on the urbanistic conditions of each zone.
And let's talk about something that for some may seem like a simple line on a plan, but which for many families represents an opportunity for the future: allowing, where technical and legal conditions make it possible, a home to grow one more floor so that the children of its owners have a housing alternative without leaving the neighborhood in which they were born.
That is also making housing policy.
As is ordering the land so that Arrecife can have new open spaces and green areas, more parking, better public facilities, and the necessary reserves for new educational and health centers, or regularizing the situation of so many families in our scattered settlements.
There is, for example, the need to respond to Argana and its future health center. A demand that cannot remain eternally conditioned by the lack of urban planning solutions.
Because a city is not built solely by erecting buildings. It is built by ensuring that its neighborhoods have schools, health centers, spaces for coexistence, services, and opportunities.
And, above all, it is built by establishing rules that are the same for everyone.
That two neighbors in equivalent conditions can exercise the same rights. That the possibilities of developing a plot do not depend on who its owner is. That the general interest is above any particular interest.
That is what serious planning must guarantee.
Of course, a document of this complexity allows for disagreements, corrections, and improvements. Precisely for that reason, administrative procedures, technical reports, public participation, and legal controls have been developed.
But those channels have existed for years. The city cannot pretend to remain indefinitely at the starting point.
Public participation is not decorative. It has deadlines, procedures, and real opportunities to intervene. And those who have held government responsibilities during this process must also answer for how they took advantage of those opportunities.
On this path, I want to especially mention my colleague Maciot Cabrera, councilor for Urban Planning, who has taken on a task as necessary as it is complex and who is demonstrating constancy, determination, and commitment so that Arrecife can complete this process.
And I want to tell you something publicly: that you don't waste a minute of your time or a gram of your enthusiasm attending to certain attacks. That you continue working with the same determination, the same desire, and the same commitment to Arrecife that you have shown so far.
Because those who today question your work would very much like to achieve, even from afar, your capacity for effort, your constancy, and your commitment to solving problems that have been pending for decades.
Political criticism is legitimate and necessary, but it must be accompanied by arguments and alternatives. When these are lacking, only noise remains.
And in the face of noise, Maciot's best response will be to continue working so that Arrecife finally has the planning it has been waiting for for more than thirty years.
Because this Plan is not Maciot's, nor mine, nor a political party's. It is a tool for the future of Arrecife.
To the socialist leaders and their spokespersons in Arrecife, I would say that they have every right in the world to disagree, to scrutinize, and to defend another model of city. But it would be much more useful if they explained with concrete proposals what they would have done differently and why they did not defend it when they had the opportunity to participate.
Let them tell us what protected housing reserves they consider insufficient, what public facilities they propose, what alternatives they offer for the neighborhoods, and how they plan to solve the problems that have been pending for decades.
Because opposing is simple. Solving is quite more complicated.
It would also be worth remembering that defending the territory does not mean keeping a city paralyzed. Defending the territory is ordering its growth, protecting its values, guaranteeing public services, and ensuring that the benefits generated by urban development revert to the citizenry as a whole.
Arrecife is not better protected by condemning its young people to leave due to lack of housing, nor by preventing its neighborhoods from having new facilities.
Nor is the general interest better defended by maintaining an urban planning system that is difficult for those who are not friends or comrades in arms to understand.
We defend precisely the opposite: legal certainty, transparency, equal opportunities, and public decisions subject to technical criteria and democratic control.
And we also defend that Arrecife should know its own urbanistic history. That it be explained what decisions were made in the past, what their consequences were, and what political responsibilities existed at each stage.
Without simplifications, without gratuitous accusations, but also without fear of reviewing the less comfortable chapters of that history.
Because planning should not only serve to order the future. It should also allow us to learn from past mistakes.
At this point, what Arrecife needs is not another decade of uncertainty or another collection of press releases announcing misfortunes.
It needs housing, parking, green spaces, schools, health centers, and opportunities. It needs its neighborhoods to be able to develop with homogeneous criteria and for its residents to know clearly what they can and cannot do with their properties.
And it needs urbanistic policy to be decided where it belongs: in the institutions, with transparency and with the guarantees established by law.
That is why I want to make something absolutely clear.
We are not going to take a step back.
We are going to continue working until the final approval of the Plan is completed, with all the necessary legal reports and guarantees, because Arrecife cannot afford to remain indefinitely trapped in the urbanistic problems of thirty years ago.
Neither elections, nor partisan confrontation, nor media noise will change that commitment.
Arrecife will have a Plan, with the Socialist Party or without the Socialist Party.
And those who had the opportunity to participate in its development and did not will have to explain their decisions. We will assume the responsibility of completing the work.
Because Arrecife has a plan. And we are going to continue working to make it a reality.
And if some are uncomfortable that we are finally bringing order, they will have to get used to it. Because when disorder ends, so does the bargain.
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