The National Court affirmed yesterday that the land allocated for the hotel development in La Tejita, located in El Médano, is eligible for development and lies outside the public lands designated by Costas. This ruling allows for the maintenance of the coastal protection easement at 20 metres, in line with the Coastal Law. The decision dismisses the appeal lodged by the Tenerife Association of Friends of Nature (ATAN), which sought to extend this strip to 100 metres.
Rubén Pérez, a representative of the association, believes that this ruling “does not exempt the project from adhering to the current regulations,” particularly regarding those areas that are under public domain and the protection easement.
Pérez indicated that approximately 30% of the plot “is affected for this reason,” which, according to him, supports the notion that the developer “should reconsider the project.”
In its appeal, ATAN argued that the Costabella-El Médano Partial Plan, which was approved in 1971, failed to meet the planned urban planning timelines, a situation they believed justified extending the easement to 100 metres. Nonetheless, the National Court has confirmed that the land has been classified as an urban reserve since the sixties, and that the plan was partially implemented prior to the enactment of the Coastal Law in 1988, which imparts different characteristics and conditions to the subsequently approved urban plans.
Moreover, the state lawyer cautioned that prohibiting the execution of the various plans at this stage would necessitate compensation.
The group requested a reassessment of the demarcation over a stretch of nearly half a kilometre, between points 147 and 155, claiming that the partial plan “had not fulfilled the urban planning obligations within the specified deadlines,” as the works did not commence until after 1981. However, the hearing concluded that, by 1988, it was already anticipated that tourist urbanisation would be developed in this area, and additionally, in 2002, the demarcation “had already been approved under these same conditions.”
ATAN maintains that the ruling illustrates “an outdated application of regulations,” which favours urban expansion over coastal conservation.
In the meantime, construction activities are focused on the upper section of the land, the area where the development of the residential zones of the complex is currently taking place.
