«The works that have been carried out in the Puertito de Adeje comply with legal regulations and do not require a work license or environmental report since these are works that conform to the General Plan; We are not talking about work on the Cuna del Alma complex, but rather that works provided for in the General Plan have been undertaken. Municipal sources of the Adeje City Council defend in this way the urbanization works that have been undertaken in the Puertito de Adeje and that are prior to the work itself on the complex, such as the layout of streets or enabling previous services to generate less inconvenience to the neighbors.
The same municipal sources categorically reiterate that “the works that were being carried out – until the precautionary suspension issued last Friday by the Department of Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands– are already included in the urbanization project established by the General Plan, a legal framework that establishes the conditions for action under the protection of all the studies provided, so there is no need for a subsequent environmental report”.
«The General Plan is the framework that regulates the organization of the municipality and how the streets or services are planned for the endowment and subsequent equipment, for which reason a license is required to build a street or the provision of services, which are the works in those that have consisted of the works paralyzed cautiously since Friday, when it comes to a General Plan that had already been modified in 2014, ”the municipal sources specify. And adds: “Activities were being carried out where they would later move to build Cuna del Alma.”
It should be remembered that the Territorial Planning Council of the Autonomous Executive decreed on Friday the precautionary suspension of the Cuna del Alma tourism project due to the discovery of specimens of the sad viper plant (Echium triste), which means, in the opinion of the aforementioned regional department, ” an imminent threat of environmental damage to protected wild flora”, as denounced by the Salvar La Tejita Association.
“The Cuna del Alma project lacks an environmental impact study”
Director’s assessment
The Minister of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning, Jose Antonio Valbuenaensures that “the Cuna del Alma project lacked the environmental impact study in accordance with the law”, while the Adeje City Council stresses that the works carried out are in compliance with the General Plan and do not require any further report to carry out the streets and equip of services in the area than the studies that were carried out at the time.
According to Valbuena, “it was necessary for the granting of the license that the project had an environmental impact statement”, to add that once the fifteen-day period established by law ends for the affected parties to present their corresponding allegations to the precautionary suspension decreed by Territorial Planning, this Ministry has up to nine months by law to resolve the file opened on Friday.
Valbuena admits that the processing of the Cuna del Alma file “is not easy and the Ministry has to work to guarantee legal security, which is not the patrimony of one party exclusively, but of society, both promoters, investors, employers, environmental groups, any individual…». “This file ensures that legal certainty, as the heritage of the Canarian society where the administrations have, depending on the level at which we are.”
“In the environmental evaluation of the General Plan of Adeje there was no ‘viborina'”
“We have to articulate those measures that are perfectly described in three basic legislative frameworks that we have to comply with yes or yes,” he recalls: “One is the Law on Biodiversity and Natural Heritage, which reflects what is a kind of special protection and what are the obligations of any autonomous administration; a second legal framework, the Environmental Responsibility Law, instrument from which this file is being articulated, and a third framework, the Environmental Impact Law». “There is a lot of talk about the environmental study, but about the modification of the General Plan, and that is not what we are discussing at the moment,” explains counselor Valbuena.
«What we are analyzing is that while a planning document, such as the general plan and its modification, carries what is called a strategic environmental assessment, later development projects require an environmental impact study, which is something else complementary and different. », says Valbuena. “The legislation asks public administrations to adopt all necessary measures to avoid damage in certain species that may be difficult or impossible to repair.” That is why the precautionary suspension of the work has been decreed, the counselor emphasizes.
The person in charge of Territorial Planning recalls that, Once the file is opened due to the precautionary stoppage, fifteen days are given to the affected or interested parties so that they make their allegations and, later, process that documentation and reach a final resolution. “We are waiting for what is proposed to find out what the meaning of that final resolution is,” he adds.
“The law grants a maximum of nine months to study the allegations and resolve”
As a result of these allegations, the Ministry has a period of six months, which could be extended for another three more, for the final resolution of the file. “It will be necessary to first see the content of these allegations and the complexity of their analysis to know the time that will be invested in the final resolution”, although the regional counselor admits that “our intention is to resolve as soon as possible”, because during the processing of the file the works would remain paralyzed.
Valbuena admits that the sad viper species did not appear in the strategic environmental assessment provided in the proceedings; “It is a question that will have to be answered at some point,” adds the counselor, who insists that “the Law establishes that one thing is the environmental evaluations of the planning management instruments -General Plan- and another thing is the study of environmental impact of the work projects that complete what had been analyzed in a strategic environmental evaluation –referring to planning–, including something that is very important, such as an inventory of the species that exist in the scope of the project. If an environmental impact report had been made here, the snake would have appeared; we cannot mix both concepts”, says Valbuena.
«We are talking about a project, not the General Plan; The project does not have an environmental impact study that, if it had been carried out, would have detected the snake and not only that, but in that phase of the simplified environmental processing of the project, the corresponding corrective measures would surely have been taken.
The counselor recalls that “in the General Plan you carry out an analysis up to the level that the approach allows, and you make forecasts of what may be there and when you do the project, you carry out a careful analysis with the inventory of species, which is what is not appears reflected.” “The project has lacked the preparation of an environmental impact study.”
