The triumph of a sustainable vision of the Canary Islands, of an uplifting symbiosis between tourism, agriculture, environment and development, had one of the main references in the fight of the 80s to “Save El Rincón”. What’s more, the 1992 regional law that protected this two million square meter Orotaven area (which includes the largest agricultural area below the TF-5 and three of the best beaches in the north), a rule born after the collection of 35,000 signatures and for which the mayor at that time (the famous and unforgettable Isaac Valencia) said that Parliament “had dropped its pants”, since then it served as a state example for other environmental and social causes, and led to a Special Plan (1997 ) as praised by some, as unrealizable and “Bolivarian” for others.
In fact, 31 and 26 years have passed since both milestones and El Rincón continues to move, as paradoxical as it may seem, between the paralysis and the spider webs of the legal text and its project of actions, with very disparate interpretations between owners and the Coordinator. Ecologist (which a few years ago maintained a more collaborative attitude) and new administrations that are trying to reactivate the Consortium, but who have not been able to avoid friction in these first months of mandate between those who believe that everything must be fulfilled as it was conceived and those who consider essential changes that remove corsets in favor of “development.”
Of course, environmentalists believe that this last term, in reality, hides the everlasting commitment of various political sectors and some of the farm owners to “developmentalism.” Toño Sánchez, one of the main representatives of the Coordinator since Valencia began to hint at the urbanization of El Rincón in the early 80s, remembers that “absolutely nothing of the ’97 plan has been fulfilled and they continue to say that it must be modified, when what has happened is that crops have been changed without anything happening”, apart from the palpable recovery of exploited agricultural lands compared to previous periods.
The environmental group, a state reference that was also key in other struggles and even in the initial complaint of Las Teresitas, fears that the owners “only want to change the plan to build tourist cabins that they know do not fit into the law and that, as “Other illegalities that have been committed despite repeated warnings, we would never allow.”
Sánchez attributes the situation of this cornering of the law and the plan to the lack of political will. “CC now says that, from 2019 to 2023, the regional government did nothing with the Consortium and I have always criticized the lack of political will, which El Rincón has wasted to serve as an example of another model, but they did nothing either. from 2000 to 2014”.
“After so many years,” he emphasizes, “it is time for the Consortium to be activated again, although we have been scared by the fact that the first thing said in this mandate is that the Special Plan must be reviewed. What you have to do, really, is comply with it. Only part of the owners never liked it and, of course, the local government. It cannot be said that it has not worked if not one of its measures, agricultural or otherwise, has been developed. For this reason, it amuses me that they say that nothing can be done there, when, for example, many alternative crops to bananas have been changed and irrigation works are being carried out. In fact, I often tell them to look at the Grafcan maps at everything that has been done since ’92, not all of it legal, far from it.”
“The money there has been,” he adds, “which has not been much, has been invested in works that did not correspond to the Consortium, such as the staircase on Los Patos beach. For this reason, we will ask at the next meeting of the Consortium that some measure be developed with the remaining amount and that people see that things are moving in El Rincón, but in the sense of the law, that of a place protected by its agriculture. ”.
The owners, on the other hand, have a radically different vision. So much so that the association chaired by Miguel Ángel González de Chaves assures that the plan has “a wording so close to a Bolivarian regime that, fortunately, it has been and will be unviable, at least as long as private property and economic freedom exist.”
In his opinion, projects such as the diffuse hotel, the campsite or the equestrian center planned, in reality, were proposed from “the idyllic, since it was said that they would generate income to be redistributed among the owners managed from the public, when the truth is that none initiative has been able to be translated into reality and, today, that management model, with a retrospective vision, can be classified as naive.”
The owners say that, in the face of the law and the plan, they have never been financially compensated. “Quite the opposite: we have been ignored by the closest politicians and technicians, abandoned in a corner of the municipality without decent public services. They have looked the other way in the face of the commitment to bury the provisional electrical lines that go to the Port, there is no sanitation and they have made urban planning procedures unbearably difficult. Therefore, it is rather possible to claim damages for lost profits, to which we will give the due judicial process.”
They are clear that the plan is “obsolete” and, although they still believe the objective of the 1992 law is plausible, they consider that an “out of date planning, expropriation, redistributive and interventionist” mentality continues to prevail, a vision that they attribute, above all, to the Coordinator, who is accused of limiting their right to private property and wanting to limit their agricultural sales to La Orotava, the complete opposite of the total liberalism that they clearly profess, as demonstrated in their latest public note.
Furthermore, they warn that, since 2017, with the new Law on Land and Natural Spaces in the Canary Islands, the plan has remained “even more in a legal limbo that is uninterpretable by the officials themselves. A situation of blockage, with evident legal uncertainty and a difficult fit within the framework of current regulations and, for this reason, and given the inactivity of the Consortium and the public institutions that comprise it, we challenge the plan before the Contentious Court. .
VISION OF THE CONSISTORY
Narciso Pérez, Urban Planning Councilor of La Orotava and councilor since 1999, knows the problems of El Rincón very well. He regrets that now the alarms are going off when, “unlike the previous regional legislature, when the activity was null and no issue was addressed, what is sought at this time is to reactivate the Consortium as soon as possible by the administrations, with the Gesplan technical apparatus.”
“We are still waiting for the latest appointments of members and we want to accelerate it to address issues such as the improvement of the road to Bollullo, whose project has been completed since 2019, which had financing and which foresees restricted traffic, such as in Punta de Teno, on weekends. , with a small bus to eliminate the current density of vehicles.”
As he points out, “this inaction caused the interveners of the Cabildo and the Consistory to force the reimbursement of the amounts contributed to the Consortium.” “Likewise, we want to promote the specific irrigation plan to maintain that agricultural land and the coastal path that would connect El Bollullo with El Ancón, since many citizens are happy with the arrangement of access to Los Patos, but criticize the difficulties in getting there. “, it states.
Pérez denies that they want to change the plan and insists on the word “review, although always based on consensus between the parties, from a point of balance. It is evident that it must be updated, maintaining the philosophy with which it was created, which is the protection of the territory, but many years have passed and things must be updated and, for this, the Consortium is key.”
“We no longer report because it costs money and the rulings are not even fulfilled”
Since 1992, and despite the great protection of the law, private works have been carried out in various parts of El Rincón, not all of them permitted, “far from it,” according to Sánchez. Narciso Pérez himself admits that there have been other files, apart from the Bollullo restaurant (“whose owner continued forward despite our minutes”), but denies that he has looked the other way in some cases and emphatically defends the actions of the Consistory and its technicians. The owner of this business, however, maintains to this newspaper that what he has carried out so far “was approved by the City Council at the time, that only Costas’ resolution is missing and that everything will be clarified in the open trial.”
The Coordinator, on the contrary, regrets that they were not listened to when “we warned certain businessmen, like the one on the beach, that they had to conform to the norm and that, if so, we would defend them, but that they should not do so.” no type of irregularities. However, we reported construction before some of these businesses opened because they were clearly illegal and, later, we have been criticized for putting jobs at risk when they did not comply with what was allowed.”
The environmentalists say that they no longer file complaints because, although they have won some cases, “the sentences are not carried out, what is illegal is not demolished and what has been modified is replaced, nothing is still known about other reported situations and all of this costs us money: The one who has to act is the City Council,” emphasizes Toño Sánchez.
The councilor, for his part, prefers not to go into judicial cases (the Prosecutor’s Office has intervened in the Bollullo case), but emphasizes that they have always acted “in accordance with the law, drawing up minutes and reporting everything.”
Meanwhile, El Rincón, its famous law and its plan remain in eternal paralysis and debate.
