Ramón Trujillo, spokesperson for United We Can (Izquierda Unida, Podemos, Equo) in the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, affirms that the urbanization process of the space occupied by the Refinery is already “an example of authoritarian urbanism, because the urban design of that space is born of a Cepsa proposal negotiated behind closed doors with the mayor. They have decided to touristize the city, they have not evaluated how to compensate with social housing, they have agreed on green spaces, infrastructures and have ruled out any alternative global proposal, without listening to anyone, ”he says in a statement.
Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the greatest transformation of a Spanish capital that has begun “behind closed doors”
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Trujillo mentions the study published this month by the German geographer Marcus Hübscher, with the title of Closed-door planning, in which a former president of the College of Architects of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is quoted stating that Cepsa and the City Council met “almost secretly” to agree on Santa Cruz Verde 2030, a project that, according to what he stated, “lacks strategic ideas, he has no ideas about what the city is, absolutely nothing”. He did not consult the neighborhood groups, nor the opposition parties, nor the University, nor the groups in defense of the environment.
The UP spokesman points out that Hübsner shows the contradiction between what Cepsa and the mayor have said. On the one hand, the company affirms that there was a “mutual rapprochement” between the public administration and the company to design Santa Cruz Verde 2030. However, for his part, the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, explained that “the company came to us and quite surprised.” In other words, “they show a procedure that demonstrates the initiative of the company in an important process of deindustrialization and urbanization in which the mayor seems to act as a salesperson for the company,” Trujillo remarked in the statement.
For the politician “it is worrying that the fate of the Refinery has been decided by a public company from the United Arab Emirates, Mubadala Investment Company, the sovereign wealth fund that owns most of Cepsa, based on its global economic strategy.” But that, in addition, the urbanization process of Santa Cruz has been promoted from Abu Dhabi shows, according to Trujillo, that “in Santa Cruz de Tenerife we have what Hübsner describes as a new form of government characterized by less democratic priorities and more directed by the elites”.
United We Can points out that the approach to tourism in the Refinery area should be the subject of a prior public debate. “The increase in the hotel plant and, possibly, also in the beds for vacation rentals will shoot up the prices of housing in the new area and in the adjoining neighborhoods. Therefore, if it is not remedied, there will be a process of greater class division of the urban space in Santa Cruz and the preventive expulsion of large sectors of the population with low incomes from the area. For this reason, for United We Can, it is a fundamental issue to agree to allocate 30% of the new planned housing to public housing, in social rental”.
Likewise, taking into account that, in the coming decades, we will witness a significant reduction in the number of private vehicles, it would be necessary to open a debate, in which specialists participate, on the new city model that should make its way in a context of less energy availability and change of the mobility model. In the statement they warn that “it is not understood that the mayor is already announcing a new transport interchange, in the new urban expansion area, and, therefore, happily discarding the existing one, despite the high cost it has had” .
United We Can adds that citizen participation is going to be limited to making allegations about an urban design from which citizen participation has been totally excluded. “Everything points to another episode of ceremonial democracy to feign citizen participation that, four years after the Santa Cruz Verde 2030 project was presented, simply does not exist,” they criticize.
“Santa Cruz Verde 2030 is going to be a new episode of authoritarian urbanism, like the one generated by Cabo Llanos, precisely the first stage of dismantling the Refinery. That stage showed the subordination of the Canarian Coalition to four businessmen and, therefore, left aside green spaces, endowments, sustainable mobility and even aesthetic values that would have been welcome”, they conclude.
