Jorge Andrés Pérez Hernández, natural of The Cuesta de la Villa and resident in The fifth, on Saint Ursula, is the president of the La Quinta de Chimaque Neighbors Association. This collective has called for next Sunday, October 24, a demonstration to demand that the City Council receive both urbanizations and provide them with infrastructure and basic services such as public lighting. Residents in this area complain that they pay the Real Estate Tax (IBI) highest in the town and they have no light on the streets. According to his calculations, “we pay 600,000 euros of IBI per year to the City Council and practically nothing is reinvested here.”
What will they claim in the demonstration called for October 24 in Santa Úrsula?
What we want to claim, basically, is that the City Council receives the two urbanizations of The fifth so that we can have decent services in public lighting, sanitation and maintenance of roads, sidewalks, green areas and urban furniture. For us it is essential to have lighting at night in all the streets to end public insecurity, accidents and falls.
Is the protest authorized?
We already communicate to the Government Sub-delegation that on Sunday 24, at 10:30 am, we are going to gather next to the municipal swimming pool to move to the City Hall through Los Pesqueros avenue, the pedestrian bridge, the sports area and Doctor Pérez avenue. We have also informed them that we are going to take the road to reach the City Hall and read a manifesto there. It coincides with the festivities and a motor event, so a lot of people are going to get together. Neighbors are already organizing to prepare their posters and banners. We have the proposal to go with yellow vests, as in france, to make us see even more.
What has the City Council responded to?
The latest information we have from the City Council, which was verbally transferred to us, is that the case of La Quinta Vieja is being prosecuted, with all that that may entail, and regarding The Fifth New, they tell us that they are trying to negotiate. What they tell us is that they are trying to reach an agreement with the company, which is Acciona, but that when it is close to being closed, they change the interlocutor and we have to start over. They haven’t done anything else.
Have they started protests in other ways?
We have complained to Common Deputy by public lighting and by the deficiencies of the municipal website. That has not yielded any results either. They still do not answer us.
Do you hope that this mobilization will make any progress?
We hope it is. We hope you finally decide to sit down and talk to us. It is true that we focus complaints on the City Council, which is the administration to which we pay for services and the IBI, but no one has told us to join forces to complain to Acciona or to go hand in hand with the City Council in some lawsuits. It is clear that the developer must deliver the development in the agreed terms, but when we propose to push together, the City Council withdraws. Why? Well, perhaps because the City Council, at some point, authorized actions that it is now retracting from. For example the purifier. Acciona says it has authorization to do it where it is and the City Council says no. We are in the middle.
Does the City Council provide them with any kind of service?
Yes, it takes care of road cleaning, garden maintenance, road signs, public lighting only in part of La Quinta, water supply, building permits, fords … And it charges us the IBI. We have made a calculation: in La Quinta there are about 2,000 registered homes, based on the authorized water meters, so that, at an average of 300 euros per year, we pay about 600,000 euros of IBI to the City Council each year and here we do not reinvest almost nothing. They are about 6 million euros in the last ten years. We feel abandoned, first by the City Council and then by the rest of the administrations. We have gone to knock on many doors and we did not find shelter either. We have gone to the Deputy of the Common, to the Government Delegation, to the Government of the Canary Islands and we are waiting for an appointment President of the Cabildo and the President of the Canary Islands. We have asked everyone for protection, to see if they make the city council see reason. There must be some solution.
How do you explain that one part of La Quinta has lighting and the other does not?
They have not explained it to us and we believe that they could not explain it either. After the demonstration we are going to ask for another meeting with the City Council to see what progress has been made in the last year. They probably haven’t done anything. We understand that, being older, in La Quinta Vieja the lighting was turned on that way. In the new part it started badly because they were issued habitability certificates for which a former mayor (Ricardo García) and other members of previous local governments were charged. That caused the normality of the reception to be disturbed.
The streetlights of La Quinta Nueva never worked?
Yes, there was a time when they worked and that cost was assumed by Acciona, but I understand that they would get tired of paying. The problem with this, and also with facilities like the municipal swimming pool, is that the day they want to start it up again they will find that the rats have eaten the cables, or that they have stolen them; that the systems are no longer approved; that the lights will be broken … What usually happens when something is abandoned.
In summer they complained of an infestation of rats, has it been acted upon?
No not at all. We have filed complaints with the Local Police and the Civil Guard Seprona. The rats are the problem, but it all comes from the existence of a colony of wild chickens, which people feed, which help the rats to proliferate. Around here they roam at ease. The City Council deratives from time to time, but does not take care of the chickens, although the animal protection law and the municipal animal protection ordinance are being violated.
Have you received a response on the demand that the pedestrian bridge be used as an escape route for vehicles in emergency situations?
We raise it after what we live in the February 2020 fire, but the City Council replied that it is not theirs and the Cabildo told us that the upper part does not belong to them either. So apparently the bridge belongs to no one. We have reiterated that question through the Deputy of the Common.
Are there any sewage discharges in La Quinta?
Yes, and we have also reported them to Seprona. On The fifth there are three wastewater discharge points: one in the La Quinta Vieja treatment plant, where there is a constant flow of water; another in the La Quinta Nueva treatment plant, which is not in service, but the water is running. Everyone discharges into the sewers of the urbanization that goes to a treatment plant that does not work. Near number 13 of Avenida de Los Pesqueros there is another overflow from the sewerage network that flows directly into the La Cruz ravine. Everything is in the hands of Seprona and for now we do not know anything else.
And where does this wastewater go?
Well, the water just comes out there and is lost.
How many complaints have they filed for these situations?
There have been several. For the rats and chickens, for the dumping, for the lack of lighting, for the potholes and destroyed sidewalks, for the plots full of weeds … Now the last thing that was raised in the assembly of the Neighborhood Association is entrust a legal cabinet to study the viability of transferring everything that is happening here to the Prosecutor’s Office. If these are private developments, why is public money invested in some things? If this is not public, why do they arrange gardens that are theoretically private? In some writing they have told us that La Quinta is a private urbanization, and that has been answered to a woman who fell on a sidewalk in poor condition. So why do they offer some services and others not? That makes no sense.