What about the opinion?

Just as a glass can be seen as half full or half empty, depending on who is looking at it, a report can also have multiple interpretations. However, judging by the comments made in recent days by certain...

April 1 2011 (14:06 WEST)

Just as a glass can be seen as half full or half empty, depending on who is looking at it, a report can also have multiple interpretations. However, judging by the comments made in recent days by certain...

Just as a glass can be seen as half full or half empty, depending on who is looking at it, a report can also have multiple interpretations. However, judging by the comments made in recent days by certain politicians, and especially the president of the Cabildo, it gives the impression that they have read a different opinion. That they are not really talking about Luciano Parejo's report, presented last Monday at the Biosphere Reserve Council.

After analyzing the document, for example, it is inevitable to ask: where has Pedro San Ginés seen the word "compensations" throughout the 37 pages of this opinion? (only one express reference appears to the "Playa Blanca Partial Plan", which is not explained anywhere). And the fact is that no matter how much the professor raised this option when he spoke before the Biosphere Council, the truth is that it is not contemplated in his opinion.

In essence, what the report says is that instead of the legislative initiative proposed by the previous government group, it would be better to address the legalization of the hotels through the approval of some provisional planning regulations, which would come into force temporarily suspending part of the Island Plan and the plans of Yaiza and Teguise.

And that, in reality, means recognizing that in order to fit the illegalities that have been committed in Lanzarote in the last three decades into legality, it would be necessary to erase all the regulations in force on the island in urban matters. And the fact is that although the opinion omits to make an analysis of the situation of each establishment, it makes it clear that far from what those affected and certain politicians maintain, here we are not talking about only missing "papers".

It is evident that the hotels do not comply with the Island Plan and even their respective municipal plans, because otherwise, it would not be necessary to leave these regulations in suspense in order to legalize them, and it would be enough for them to reapply for the license. The excessive island growth that occurred with the licenses annulled by the courts not only implies the verification of the excess of beds that were made in breach of the maximums established in the island regulation, but also that it was done at the expense of the land for equipment: where is the 25 percent of land reserve for complementary equipment required by the PIOT in each partial plan, and that the beds that were made in them "ate"?

Once this is assumed, it can be discussed whether it provides more legal certainty to address this process from a legislative initiative or from transitional planning regulations that are then transferred to the Plan under revision, but the problem is that Parejo's opinion is limited to setting the steps to follow, but does not specify anything about how they would be carried out. It does not explain the content of these rules, nor what parameters would be followed. And it can hardly do so, when it does not even analyze the situation of each establishment, despite the fact that it would be essential to distinguish the seriousness of each case when addressing this problem.

That is to say, the document presented last Monday, and which seems to have become the "Bible" of the government group, really does not solve anything. It gives a way out to be able to "overcome" the current planning, but it does not specify how it will materialize. And the fact is that if it is intended to establish new temporary "rules of the game", in order to give coverage to the illegal, the important thing is to know the content of those rules, or at least have an explanation of what criteria will be used to develop them.

Because no matter how much they try to defend that the good thing about this option is that it will have the supervision of the judicial bodies, the planning "rules" will not be drafted by the judges, but by the politicians. And obviously they will be subject to the criteria of the court, just like any initiative that is undertaken, legislative or of any type, that affects the execution of the judgments, because it is evident that the law that was proposed at the time would be applied with acts that would also be controlled by the Courts.

Precisely for that reason, the legislative initiative proposed by the previous government group included a mechanism of compensation to the general interest, in the form, for example, of declassification of beds or transfers of land for public endowments (it is worth remembering that the report of the PIOT Office showed that in many plans barely 4 percent of land was reached for equipment, when the minimum established in the PIOT is 25 percent), in exchange for the legalization of the establishments. On the one hand, because otherwise it would only be a reward for the offenders. On the other hand, because there are already precedents in which the Justice has overturned changes in the planning aimed solely at giving coverage to the illegal. And the fact is that although it is evident that thirty hotels cannot be thrown to the ground, neither can a clean slate be made in exchange for nothing, nor can the most "minor" cases be treated the same as those that are seriously serious.

Therefore, it is essential to know how all this is going to be resolved and to have some parameters to which to adhere. They can be those already established by the legislative initiative proposed during the socialist government or they can be others, but the problem is that the new opinion does not propose any.

However, it does extend and much in analyzing the very bases on which the island planning and the competences of the Cabildo in this matter are based. And in that, curiously, Luciano Parejo's opinion defends the same arguments that the offenders have maintained for years, with the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero at the head. That is to say, it maintains that the Cabildo should not maintain in its planning the report of compatibility with the PIOT with a mandatory character, because it would suppose to invade the municipal competences for the concession of licenses. However, Parejo overlooks that this theory has been overturned by dozens of judicial sentences, which have given the reason to the Cabildo in all the lawsuits that during years have been interposed not only under the government of the PSOE, but also of CC, of the PP and even of the PIL.

Is that what is celebrated about this report? Is that the part that some have read? Do they intend to renounce the right that the courts have recognized to the Cabildo to ensure compliance with the Island Plan? Because if so, the concern is not only what is going to be done with the illegalities committed up to now, but also what paths are being intended to open towards the future.

The contradiction reaches such a point that, after suggesting that the compatibility report be eliminated (it is considered an intrusion into the autonomy of the town councils), it proposes that, in the event of non-compliance, the Cabildo resort to the courts when the town councils notify it of the licenses. If with the mandatory report of the Cabildo in force this situation has been reached, what would happen if it is not even required?

Is it trusted that now the town councils are going to respect all the regulations, including the PIOT, and are going to notify the licenses to the Cabildo? Will the blind eye be turned in case this is not the case? Or will we see ourselves in a few years with a problem equal to or greater than the current one? And if so, if we have again what for some seems the "bad luck" of winning all the sentences, will we take out of the hat another "New Testament" to throw stones again against the roof of the law?

Most read