He Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council has addressed the Government of the Canary Islands to formally request the suspension of planning on the land occupied by the Santa Cruz Refinerywith the aim of advancing the development of the Santa Cruz Verde 2030 Plan, which will allow the use of these spaces for the city once the industry completes the dismantling process in which it is immersed.
The mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, has addressed both the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands and the Department of Territorial Planning, explaining the need to find a formula that will speed up the planning of these lands, working on it in parallel to the exit process from the municipality’s Refinery. “We are facing a strategic project that will condition the expansion of the city towards the south. There is no project of this level in the Canary Islands from the urban planning point of view, nor from the point of view of urban development,” the councilor stressed.
Bermúdez explained to DIARIO DE AVISOS that “we have asked the Government of the Canary Islands to use article 168 of the Land Law, referring to exceptional actions promoted by the autonomous Executive and taking into account reasons of public, social and economic interest, which are contemplated clearly in the Santa Cruz Verde Plan, the current planning is suspended in order to proceed with the planning of the future lands that the Refinery occupies today. A request that, with the support of the regional Executive, Cabildo, Port Authority, Government of Spain and Cepsa, owner of the land, will speed up the process without waiting to use the ordinary route, which is having to approve a General Plan that orders this area from an urban planning point of view.”
In this sense, he added that “the City Council is working on the future General Planning Plan (PGO), still in the progress phase, and which I hope will be approved in this mandate. But, in the case of the Refinery, it will be faster to use the path allowed by law for absolutely justified projects of strategic interest, in order for the Government to suspend and order the future urban planning of the land. We are going to agree on the organization, but it will be the Executive who carries it out.”
In this regard, the mayor announced that “previous meetings are taking place with the President of the Government, Fernando Clavijo, as well as with the President of the Cabildo, Rosa Dávila, in which the Councilor for Urban Planning, Zaida González, is also present. There is already an agreement that this is the path for the urban planning of the future lands of the Refinery,” he specified.
In the opinion of the councilor, “it is about finding a faster and more agile path that advances the approval of the urban planning foreseen in the Santa Cruz Verde 2030 Plan. To do this, we are going to resort to this legal shortcut that contributes to being able to advance in the future of this area, since we are talking about the urban planning and expansion project of a most important city not only in the Canary Islands but in the entire State, in which 575,000 square meters of land are also mixed with the process of strategic dismantling at the national level of a Refinery that has needed the express authorization of the Government of Spain. Therefore, I believe that the reasons are more than justified to use that path and that in 2030 it will be a reality,” he stressed.
Bermúdez indicated that “we want a sustainable city and for that the collaboration of all the administrations involved in this great project is necessary. Therefore, we understand that the request to suspend the planning instruments on these soils of the oil plant is the fastest way to coordinate all the parties involved.”
The councilor recalled that in this process there are three basic legs: The dismantling of the Refinery, which is already taking place; the decontamination of the soil, which is carried out by Cepsa; and the part of the urban planning of the land, still pending. “This last section is what we focus on so that we can decide as soon as possible what is going to be built and what land we are going to dedicate to public areas, parks, gardens, sports facilities, roads, homes, hotels or walks. Therefore, it must be the Government that does it and, in addition, we are going to suggest that it be done through the public company Gestur, so that the proposal can be worked on from a technical point of view together with Cepsa and, once it is concluded, it is approved for works to begin in the area, with public and private investment.”
Legal processing
In the document sent to the Government of the Canary Islands, the City Council requests the regional Government to process, pursuant to article 168 of the Law on Soil and Protected Natural Spaces of the Canary Islands (Lsenpc), the procedure for suspending the planning instruments that affect the scope of the land occupied by the Refinery, in order to achieve management in a single instrument that responds to the objectives of the Santa Cruz Verde 2030 Plan, and coordinates the powers and interests of all administrations (Government of Spain, Government of the Canary Islands, Island Council and City Council) and agents involved, whose exceptional nature is understood to be absolutely justified.
As specified in the document, the achievement of the objectives derived from the Santa Cruz Verde 2030 Plan must inevitably involve a modification of the current planning, not only from the urban (municipal) but also from the territorial (island) point of view, which is also added to the intervention of administrations with sectoral powers in the area. Hence, an instrument is necessary that brings together all the derivatives of the organization of this space.
The possible alternatives included in the Law, analyzed by Urban Planning, involve the modification of the Insular Territorial Planning Plan (PIOT), so that these lands are no longer considered for industrial use, a solution that entails the specific modification of the planning in validity or inclusion in the new PGO. In any case, this option “is complex, in addition to its delay in time, since if it were actually approved, the urban planning would have to be processed and approved a posteriori, coordinating it with the rest of the instruments that affect, with the limitations that this entails regarding the model to be proposed.”
Another alternative is to declare the Santa Cruz Verde 2030 Plan as a project of island interest, as permitted by the Land Law, although it does not contemplate that this declaration be used for the implementation of residential and tourist accommodation uses, which does not fit with the projection for that space.
The City Council defends that “the exceptional nature of the regulation of this instrument is justified by the fact that, as previously stated, the recovery of these lands for Santa Cruz de Tenerife may constitute the most relevant urban planning operation of the coming decades, not only at the insular and regional level but also at the national level, in which there is no doubt that public, social and economic interest come together.”
Likewise, Bermúdez pointed out that there is a precedent for similar requests in Tenerife, such as that of the City of Justice in Cabo Llanos, “where the Government also acted and work is already being done on the urban planning of the area.”
