Some 150 people gathered yesterday in front of the iders buildinglocated on Avenida Betancourt y Molina, to demand that the Town Hall of Puerto de la Cruz to do something with the building, abandoned 31 years ago and turned into “the real shame of the city”.
It is the first time that neighbors, hoteliers and merchants in the area have agreed and organized a peaceful protest to ask for a solution since the building was evicted in 1991 due to aluminosis and danger of collapse, although it was finally shown that it did not affect to its structure.
Shouting ‘enough is enough’, wearing t-shirts that said the same thing, and to the accompaniment of whistles and a bugle, the protesters asked for two hours to put an end to the health problems in the building, which they defined as “a real dump ” from which rats and cockroaches also come out, where squatters and homeless people live, many of them with drug addiction and mental health problems who constantly fight and cause fires.
“The residents of the adjoining buildings have lived in a desperate situation for years and we want this to end,” they argued after their spokesman read a manifesto in which he expressed solidarity with the families who lost their homes and called on politicians “to manage well the general interests of the city” and “make decisions that benefit all citizens”. “We can say it by shouting, dancing, with music, but there is one very important thing, a picture is worth a thousand words and there you have it, it is for everyone to see,” he said, pointing to the Iders.
In the background, a stanza of the rap created for the Iders was heard “in the face of silence, music alleviates this mistake, because the Iders building is the shame of the Port“.
Half an hour before the end of the concentration, the mayor, Marco González, appeared at the scene and went to talk to the neighbors who bombarded him with questions. The task was not easy because he had to deal with several fronts: on the one hand, the residents of the area who demand a solution to the current situation, and on the other, the owners, who refuse to accept the demolition and demand that the Consistory to give them back their house after having taken it “unjustly” 31 years ago.
“He does not have aluminosis”, they insisted several times. “Also, if he is so dangerous, how is he still standing after 31 years?” They questioned the mayor.
González made it clear that “he was not going to rewind 31 years back. I have just arrived and I am going to take steps to move forward, because by going backwards we achieve nothing. I am doing what the City Council is legally and administratively allowed to do,” he insisted. He also did not blame or refer to any of his predecessors despite the fact that several of those present did so directly.
He simply detailed all the steps he had taken to resolve this matter since he became Mayor. His only return to the past was to remember that years ago, if the building was demolished, only another six-storey building could be built according to the two urban proposals presented and endorsed by the General Planning Plan at that time, and that implied a significant loss for the property. But with the Land Law and the declaration of imminent ruin, a new building is allowed in the same conditions as the current ones, he affirmed.
He stressed that an important step was the declaration of unhealthiness, which began in the summer of last year when the Public Health technicians certified it and this made it possible to unblock the disinfection that the neighbors in the area were demanding. However, the companies with which the City Council contacted to undertake this task required security guarantees to access the building and this led to the current situation.
He also pointed out that in the past there were 70 people living in the building, a number that was reduced little by little until there are only two left who will be evicted shortly since yesterday the judicial aid arrived that authorizes the City Council to take this measure.
