After consulting the new heritage protection catalog of Arrecife, I have no choice but to seriously question the criteria for its preparation and its drafters. These criteria are reflected and specified in the GESPLAN document, even arguing its coordination with the institutions, although after a cursory consultation, the inconsistencies of an arbitrary and subjective work are immediately apparent.
Firstly, the number of properties incorporated into the new architectural catalog stands out, many of which are just a facade or wall of stone and mud with the openings bricked up (and many even without roofs). But the problem is not that they are included (as they should consider that they are part of a historical-artistic ensemble), but that in the same streets or areas, some are included and others are not without any argument to justify it. Under these constructive characteristics, there are not only the new 50 buildings (to say a number) that are now incorporated into the new catalog, in reality there may be more than 300. Why aren't they all included if they constitute a heritage value?
On the other hand, the arbitrariness and lack of criteria in the type of protection (integral, environmental or partial) assigned to the constructions stands out, a detail that, if compared with the previous catalog, leaves you absolutely perplexed by the inconsistencies. While now the number of listed properties grows, or those that were already listed increase in their degree of protection, there are others of outstanding heritage interest that "curiously" the drafters of the new catalog now consider to be of less interest and decrease in their type of protection or even disappear from the catalog.
Let's present just a few cases as examples of the numerous arbitrariness and inconsistencies:
1- In C/ Manolo Millares, two terraced houses next to each other, with practically the same characteristics, one has partial protection and the other environmental: one can carry out demolitions and reconstructions without problem and the other will have many difficulties.
2- In C/ Jacinto Borges, one house has partial protection and right next to it, with even more interesting heritage characteristics, it is not even in the catalog, so it can be demolished without problem.
3- A building on C/ Real (which has even been proposed as BIC due to its notable heritage interest in every way), which had integral protection in the previous catalog, now its interest and protection decreases and becomes only environmental, so it can even justify demolitions and reconstructions (according to alternative 2 and the proposals for reconstructions argued in the same catalog).
4- Two buildings with more than evident heritage and even historical interest, one in Plaza de la Constitución and another in C/ Real, which had environmental protection in the previous catalog, it seems that now they are no longer of so much interest and their protection becomes only partial (like any stone and mud wall), so supposedly they should only protect the facade and first bay, being able to make demolitions and reconstructions of the rest without any problem.
5- A historic commercial property on C/ Real that had environmental protection in the previous catalog, now it is of no interest at all and is not even in the catalog.
And these are just 5 examples, because if we consider the inclusion of the 219 properties in the new catalog (which seem to be chosen at random), to compare and contrast their degrees of protection, or to consider the arguments they present for the possible reconstructions of 9 buildings, we come across countless comparative grievances, inconsistencies and arbitrariness.
I greatly value Canarian heritage in all its dimensions and the need to protect it, but this new catalog suffers from the three basic pillars that would make one think that it has been prepared with one's feet on the ground: adequately valuing the heritage, considering the urban development of Arrecife and avoiding comparative grievances among the affected citizens.
The urban blockage of Arrecife due to so much cataloging without rhyme or reason and the damages associated with so much institutional incompetence for decades are ultimately paid by the citizens and the owners. After the administrations themselves have allowed or executed the great destructions of the heritage of Arrecife (one only has to remember La Recova), now the citizens and owners of stone and mud walls are responsible for perpetuating the heritage of Arrecife.
We are surrounded!
