The origin of this situation dates back to 2002, when the then government of Arona (formed by the CDS-CC pact, with the nationalist Miguel Delgado as mayor at that time) signed an urban agreement with the promoter company of the so-called La Camella Partial Plan Baja, called Wolding Estudio SL. By this agreement, this ceded to the municipality a plot of 1,039 square meters, corresponding to the 10% of average use in compulsory cession that the legislation established.
On October 23, 2006, the Arona City Council signed with the public company Visocan a agreement for the construction of 35 social protection houses aimed at young people and the same number of parking spaces. In this agreement, the Consistory proceeds to cede the previous plot for this and the Municipal Corporation assumes that it will remove all obstacles so that the land is urbanized and Visocan can make those homes available to users.
Licensed in 2008
In September 2008, the Local Government Board (with the nationalist José Alberto González Reverón as mayor) granted the planning license for the construction of these houses, Despite the fact that already on that date there was a warning from the Urban Planning Legal Area, in which it is stated that the term granted to the developer to urbanize the area had ended in February of that year without this having been done, as recorded in the sentence. However, the governing group of the time went ahead and granted permission.
When the construction of the set of houses was completed, in 2010, and Visocan requested the Arona City Council to hook up the network to access the water and electricity supply service, this could not be granted, since, such and as the legal service warned, the urbanization had never been completed. The consequence was that the houses could not be put up for sale, which led to a lawsuit in which the Aronera Corporation was ordered to pay almost 2.7 million euros in compensation.
However, members of the current municipal government (PSOE) and representatives of Visocan have maintained various meetings in recent months “with the intention of reversing the situation and to seek a situation that benefits, rather than harms, the entire citizenry. The last of them was carried out by both the mayor, José Julián Mena, and the manager of Visocan, Víctor González García, the local government reported yesterday in a statement.
10 million compensation
Mena assured yesterday that “since we came to the municipal government we have had to pay more than ten million euros to compensate individuals for poor urban management of previous governments.” The councilor stated that, however, “in this case it should be noted that the will of this mayor, as well as Visocan and his manager, is that this compensation for a failed housing development reverts to the benefit of the neighbors.”
In his reflection, José Julián Mena emphasizes that «It is part of the intention of this government group to rewrite the past of an Arona that was written in black and white on too many occasions. Now, what it is about is that mismanagement becomes an opportunity for our neighbors, “he added. The mayor defended that, “although it should never have been acted in the way it was done, without guarantees that these homes would actually reach the citizens, it is essential to seek constructive solutions that allow us to use public funds to improve the life of the community. people, even if this is done through the payment of compensation.
