The Santa Cruz de Tenerife refinery is not just any oil refinery. It began operating nearly a hundred years ago (1930) and has provided work for more than 400 families simultaneously. There is a lot of history around this plant. It has been a symbol of the industry in the Canary Islands and has seen the city in which it is located grow. Now that it has been paralyzed since 2014, it is getting closer to being dismantled. A megaproject with hotels, green spaces and housing will take its place.
The urbanization of the Refinery in Santa Cruz de Tenerife is “an example of authoritarian urbanism”, according to United We Can
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Holy Cross Green 2030 was announced in 2018 by the City Council of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Cepsa, the Spanish company that owns the refinery. The project “will create a large system of green areas and public facilities”, it is constituted “as a unique opportunity to complete and transform the city” and will also bring hotels to the capital. Many hotels. 10% of all the land occupied by the plant (576,000 square meters) will be dedicated to it. The German geographer Marcus Hübscher, who has been studying this initiative since 2014, believes that around 1,300 tourist places will be built, 88% more than there are currently.
Hübscher believes that the capital of Tenerife will become a “victim” of tourism. “It is important that citizens know that touristification has negative effects, such as price increases or more Airbnb”, he defends. In Canaria there are examples of this in almost any coastal city. But the bloodiest case is that of La Oliva, in the north of Fuerteventura. There, one in four homes is vacation, while only one in 62 is officially protected. In a report published a few years ago by the company Tourism Quality Consulting, the technicians conclude that the municipality is displacing the most impoverished population to the outskirts, “interfering with the wealth of the people who have to invest more in time and money for transportation.” Something similar could happen in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
“Santa Cruz has few hotels. But it is that, in the south of the city, where the refinery is, there is nothing. Nobody wants to live there. In neighborhoods like Buenos Aires or Chamberí, there are no vacancies. If the central office leaves and you build a new neighborhood and a beach, that will increase in value and many Airbnb will begin to arrive. It is an area that is 300 meters from the coast”, explains Hübscher. The agreement between the City Council and Cepsa plans an artificial beach, the creation of a “Balcony to the sea of the city” and also the regeneration of the coastline with a pedestrian and cycling promenade.
But the main reason behind the tourist offer that Santa Cruz Verde 2030 would offer is not the search for a closer relationship between the population of Santa Cruz and the ocean. It is cruise tourism, in full swing in the capital, which has pushed the Councilor for Urban Planning, Carlos Tarife (Popular Party), to justify the planned actions. In 2021, the ports of Santa Cruz de Tenerife received 4.5 million passengers, only surpassed by those of the Balearic Islands. “It seems that the city is going to become a departure point for ships. Tourists come and need to spend one or two nights before departure”, says Hübscher.
In addition, there is a debate about whether or not Santa Cruz de Tenerife is a tourist city. At least that is the question raised by Hübscher. He is clear: it is not. leans on the studio Gentrification, Displacement, and Tourism in Santa Cruz de Tenerifepublished in the magazine Urban Geography in 2013 by researchers Luz Marina García Herrera, Neil Smith and Miguel Ángel Mejías Vera. In the investigation, the authors argue that Santa Cruz de Tenerife is not so much a tourist city as the capital of a province that is. And this despite sharing many characteristics with the urbanization associated with the sun and beach economy (predominance of the services sector, high unemployment rates, majority of micro-enterprises in retail trade…).
“Santa Cruz de Tenerife has undergone a transition (…) towards a more ambitious and neoliberal city. The result is a suggestive portrait of the changing relationship between gentrification, tourism and displacement over almost half a century. The city persisted in forging the link with the tourist trade even when economic conditions changed”, the experts detail. For Hübscher, behind all this there are “very clear economic interests”, such as attracting the real estate market and the wealthiest developers in the sector, as well as propaganda. Announcing a megaproject, with bombastic and bombastic words, is usually liked. “From the political point of view it is very attractive. Because you don’t know how it’s going to end, but you’ve already launched it”, says the geographer.
An urban transformation in an impoverished region
Surrounding the Santa Cruz de Tenerife refinery are the most humble neighborhoods in the entire city. The residents of Buenos Aires and Chamberí will experience a significant change in the coming decades, when the trucks that enter and leave the facility (because the plant continues to maintain its logistics activity) will disappear. The most likely fate for them is that they end up leaving their neighborhoods due to the rising cost of living in all its aspects.
“The tourist is going to arrive yes or yes. If politicians do not take good care of the consequences that the creation of a green zone, for example, can have, there will be a lot of speculation. And those who now live next to the refinery and have endured the bad air and noise for decades, are not going to be the ones who enjoy that park (green gentrification) or the beach (tourist gentrification),” adds Hübscher. “this megaproject it will change to the south of the capital and will give a boost to the district of Cabo-Los Llanos”, where the Tenerife Auditorium, the bus station and the main shopping center in the region are located.
The last owners of Cepsa
Since 2011, Cepsa has belonged to an investment fund in Abu Dhabi, Mubadala Investment Company, with a portfolio of services specializing in energy infrastructure and real estate. Since 2019, the American group Carlyle Group has acquired 37% of the company, but, as Hübscher points out in his job Planning behind closed doors: unlocking large-scale urban development projects with the stakeholder approach in Tenerife, Spain, practically nobody knew about this movement. “Cepsa has other owners. He has to coordinate his own strategy with the new owners. And they are aware that the oil is running out”, emphasizes Hübscher.
The opacity around planning
This Tuesday, the spokesman for United We Can in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Ramón Trujillo, denounced the “authoritarian urbanism” is being done with the Santa Cruz Verde 2030 megaproject, which is still in its most embryonic phase. “They have decided to touristize the city, they have not evaluated how to compensate with social housing, they have agreed on green spaces, infrastructure and have ruled out any alternative global proposal, without listening to anyone at all.”
Trujillo believes that an increase in hotel beds “will shoot up housing prices in the new area and surrounding neighborhoods”, in a process, he continues, of “greater class division of urban space” in the capital of Tenerife. As a remedy, he sees it as “fundamental” to agree to allocate 30% of the planned homes to public housing in social rent. The spokesman for United We Can in Santa Cruz de Tenerife hopes that citizen participation will not fall on deaf ears and become one more episode of “ceremonial democracy”. In an interview with the newspaper Notice Journalthe Councilor for Urban Planning, Carlos Tarife, has assured that the participatory model will go “beyond the processes (…) established by law”.
