The coalition government of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, consisting of the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party, has revived the approach of the former mayor Miguel Zerolo to boost the San Andrés neighborhood. The City Council suggests altering the 2005 General Planning Plan to proceed with the construction of a hotel at Las Teresitas beach.
Mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez, has elucidated that it will be “a petite, 5-star hotel, with a capacity of 200 beds” and will be positioned not on the beachfront but “behind the mountain, in a military fort.” Moreover, the mayor emphasizes that the possibility of constructing a hotel is already encompassed in the Las Teresitas Special Plan.
“It is asserted to be a petite hotel, aiming to be slightly larger than the Atlántida and somewhat smaller than the Mencey Hotel. Thus, it cannot be considered a small hotel. However, planning necessitates involvement, which is currently lacking,” expounds Patricia Hernández, spokesperson for the socialist group in the Santa Cruz City Council.
“We consistently opposed the notion of establishing a hotel at the military fort and advocated for preserving the natural surroundings. The issue is that the City Council has been void of dissenting voices. Not every corner of the island needs to be geared towards tourism. They are seeking a shortcut to achieve it, although the rational course of action would be to await an overall vision with a new General Plan to be formulated during this term,” states Ramón Trujillo, from IUC.
Trujillo highlights that one of the rationales behind CC resurrecting the hotel plan at this juncture is the dissipation of social movements. “It was foreseen that a government involving the Canarian Coalition would resurrect the hotel plan and developmentalism. Back then, it was averted through the mobilization of social movements, but it collapsed subsequently with everything that ensued.” He appends, “They aspire to introduce excessive urban pressure in the area.”
In reference to the modification in the General Planning Plan, the former spokesperson for Unidas Podemos in the City Council during the last term explains: “Accessibility to the beach and public transportation ought to be considered, as the absence of these provisions would generate tension in the area. It is an area connected to the city, which experiences congestion, especially during the summer.”
Trujillo shares a similar stance to that of Patricia Hernández, who asserts that the erection of a hotel at Las Teresitas serves as a diversion to detract attention from the actual issues in the city. “Ziplines, hotels…They are recurrent distractions that they promote. They have reverted to the initial chapter penned by Miguel Zerolo. We must remember that in urban planning, citizen engagement through a participatory process, particularly of the San Andrés residents, is imperative.”
“We must remember that this beach lacks illumination, drainage, and carrying capacity. Every weekend from April through May, as the pleasant weather sets in, there are traffic jams preventing numerous individuals from reaching the beach and the town. So, what are we discussing? We are presently unable to manage the existing infrastructure or visitor access to the beach. There are insufficient parking spaces, which are also absent from the current plans. No parking, no drainage, no illumination,” he adds.
Cándido Quintana, representative for the Coalition of Social Movements in Tenerife and a key advocate of the Platform against the Mammoth project, expresses: “I am deeply concerned about the current government’s proposal for Las Teresitas, as I suspect it aims to resurrect in some way what we successfully halted in the past – the construction of a parking building, vehemently opposed by the public. We demand a pristine beach devoid of infrastructure. In essence, it should be a pristine beach meeting all the essential requirements.”
On the other hand, the San Andrés Neighborhood Association, El Pescador, has announced an upcoming meeting to evaluate the City Council’s proposal.
Timeline
In the early 2000s, the then mayor of Santa Cruz, Miguel Zerolo, devised a plan for Tenerife’s most iconic beach. This plan ultimately led to one of the major scandals in the Canary Islands, resulting in his 7-year prison sentence in the Las Teresitas case. The history of Las Teresitas beach is incomplete without mentioning the Mammoth case and the Las Huertas case.
Gloria Gutiérrez Arteaga, a socialist member of the Canary Islands Parliament in 2008, characterized what was known for years as “the Mammoth” to the then Minister of the Environment and Territorial Planning, Domingo Berriel Martínez, as “a structure covering an area of approximately 4,000 m2, intended for 404 paid parking spaces and commercial establishments. This encroaches upon the current scenic beauty and forces beachgoers to pay for access to Las Teresitas beach. Moreover, the construction infringes upon the protected easement zone without the mandatory authorization of the Ministry of Environment and Territorial Planning, the competent authority to safeguard our public heritage, through appropriate sanctioning actions and potential demolition.” At that time, Arteaga could not foresee the nearly decade-long gap between her statement and the eventual demolition, which took place in 2017.
The third chapter of Las Teresitas, the Las Huertas case, commenced when the City Council decided to expropriate the land belonging to residents of Las Huertas and Montaña Morera in the early 1970s. However, the operation was eventually halted, and neither the City Council nor the Compensation Board acknowledged the completion of the purchase. In 1998, Inversiones Las Teresitas (ILT), a company formed by Ignacio González and Antonio Plasencia, proceeded to ‘acquire’ the land situated in the rear area of Las Teresitas, initiating unprecedented exploitation. This marked the beginning of the scandal that culminated in three corruption cases, leading to the incarceration of politicians, businessmen, and officials.
PGO 2005
Since then, the issue of resolving the shortcomings of Las Teresitas has been a prevailing concern for the city. In 2018, the current mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez (CC), proposed updating the Strategic Plan that was initiated in 2007 (during Miguel Zerolo’s term) to enhance the environment of Las Teresitas during a meeting with all social and economic stakeholders of the city.
In 2020, the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) definitively annulled the 2013 General Planning Plan for lacking a Strategic Environmental Assessment. Consequently, the municipal administration seeks to amend the current plan in Santa Cruz, dated 2005 (an adaptation of the 1992 Plan), to both enhance the beachfront (promenade, traffic reorganization) and generate economic advantages for the town of San Andrés.
In 2020, Unidas Podemos criticized the PSOE for supporting the amendment to stay in power. Ramón Trujillo, spokesperson for Unidas Podemos, initially voted in favor of the Plan but later insisted on “substantial modifications” for facilitating public transportation in the area. These criticisms were supplemented by those from social groups opposing a plan targeting the construction of a large hotel.
What prompted the amendment of the General Planning Plan and for what purpose? In November 2023, the Popular Party and the Canarian Coalition wholeheartedly executed the amendment of two aspects of the General Planning Plan, one of which pertained to the planning of Las Teresitas. The City Council had commissioned this revision to the company GESTUR and fully endorsed the amendment. The PSOE criticized the lack of transparency and specificity from the government on the modifications they sought to implement in the Plan and its impact on the city, while the PP reiterated that all available information had been provided.
