They have no street lighting, sewage, or sanitation network. They live in a privately owned urbanization, which in turn depends on two city councils, but the reality is that they are in no man's land. Trapped in a ...
They have no street lighting, sewage, or sanitation network. They live in a privately owned urbanization, which in turn depends on two city councils, but the reality is that they are in no man's land. Trapped in a situation that is repeated too many times in Lanzarote. Victims of urban chaos and the excesses that have been committed on the island in recent decades.
In the case of Charco del Palo, the origin dates back to 1973, when a German developer bought the land and began to build and sell homes. Now, almost 40 years later, the urbanization still lacks basic services, and nothing is known about the construction company, which was responsible for finishing the urbanization, and which also had to cede land to the city council.
In short, this case is another example of the legacy left by certain companies that have acted in Lanzarote like elephants in a china shop, in the face of the passivity, or in some cases the complicity, of public managers.
To make matters worse, there is a court ruling that annulled several licenses in El Charco del Palo, further complicating the solution for the residents. At the end of the 90s, the then mayor, Juan Ramírez, granted new permits to continue urbanizing both Charco del Palo and other towns in the municipality of Haría, despite technical reports warning of its "manifest and flagrant illegality." This is what the Justice considered proven, which in addition to annulling the licenses, sentenced Juan Ramírez to one year and three months in prison for a continued crime of prevarication.
According to the Prosecutor's Office during the trial, the former mayor "deliberately ignored reports", issued false certificates "knowing that it was not within his functions" and "fraudulently failed to apply" the current regulations. Well, a prime example of urban management, which unfortunately has had more than one follower in Lanzarote.
At least, in this case, Ramírez will have to pay his criminal responsibility and even personally face the consequences of the annulment of those licenses, as determined by the sentence, but in the meantime, the damage has already been done to many residents and to the island as a whole.
Despite what the "cement club" has been trying to sell for years, compliance with urban planning laws is not a whim or an absurd obsession. And it is not even just about destroying a beach or a protected space, or massifying and vulgarizing the island. That a politician skips the rules or favors a certain businessman supposes, on the one hand, an injustice and an offense to the rest, who are obliged to comply. But in addition, it generates countless long-term damages, which are what Lanzarote is now paying for.
As for the hotel issue, the effects are evident, and the island has suffered them with particular harshness with the arrival of the crisis, when it has become clear that there was no capacity to assimilate such a quantity of beds in such a short time, nor the amount of labor that they attracted at the time, and which has now overflowed the unemployment figures.
But even more outrageous is the illegality in residential constructions, where the directly affected is the neighbor who had nothing to do with all this, and who suddenly finds himself with an illegal house, or with a home in an urbanization that lacks basic services such as sewage.
Another stark example of this, perhaps the worst, is in the Playa Blanca Partial Plan, declared illegal as a whole. There, possible criminal responsibilities are also being attempted to be purged, both from another of the former mayors who will go down in the black history of Lanzarote, José Francisco Reyes, and from those who surrounded and advised him. And it is that between them and the promoters, who sold the homes without informing of the legal problem they had, have led hundreds of families to a desperate situation.
Some decided to go to the Courts and thanks to several sentences, they have managed to recover their money, since they only had the purchase option signed and had not formalized the deeds. But most have not been so "lucky". Thus, they have been trapped and not only carry the cross of an illegal home, for which in many cases they are still paying the mortgage, but they also feel abandoned by the City Council in terms of basic services such as lighting.
Was this the development that the great "benefactors" of the island, who declared themselves persecuted, were selling? Is that what they consider to give progress to Lanzarote?
Of course, in view of what has happened, it seems that those who have "progressed" are only a few, because the legacy they have left to society is a monumental problem to put out all the open urban fires, with an island dotted with illegal constructions of all kinds, and without basic services.
