The schism that opened in 2017 between the Cabildo de Tenerife and the Santa Cruz City Council on account of the stoppage of the demolition of three buildings in Miraflores, closes today with the approval of the draft of the new Protection Catalog by the Governing Council of Urbanism, after agreeing the Consistory and the insular area of Historical Heritage its composition.
Although the route that remains for this document is still long, more than two years for its final approval, at least there is already a consensus between both administrations to protect 1,665 elements, of which 1,324 are buildings with architectural values, including the three buildings that unleashed the war between Cabildo and Ayuntamiento.
“We are facing a draft Catalog that has to pass a simplified environmental assessment, which will be carried out by the Government of the Canary Islands, and, from there, those are the numbers, 1,665 elements to be protected, of which 1,324 have architectural values,” he pointed out. yesterday the still councilor of Urbanism, Carlos Tarife.
As detailed by the mayor, “we have made the Catalog in consensus with the Cabildo. As soon as the evaluation is passed, we will take it to initial approval, a new period of allegations and from there to final approval. I hope that in two years it will be ready.”
Tarife clarified that “it is a document that can vary due to the allegations, but it was necessary to take a first step and bury a hatchet that some falsely closed in 2013, when the CC and PSOE ignored a report from the Planning area that he was talking about 500 more properties”. The councilman concluded by noting that this is “a first step to provide legal certainty and I think we are on the right track with respect to urban planning, by regularizing situations that were not normal in this city.”
The Catalog includes buildings with architectural values as well as urban spaces and elements, archaeological, ethnographic or paleontological heritage. Also, the areas of urban environmental protection, the network of traditional paths and trails, unique elements, such as fountains, monuments and sculptures, and monumental trees and groves and unique flora. The proposal agreed with the Cabildo has extended the temporal scope of the study, so that all the historical periods through which the city of Santa Cruz has passed are collected, from the first settlements of the 16th century to contemporary architecture, reaching the year 2000.
Among the list are some of the elements that these days have been the protagonist on account of another catalog, that of Francoist vestiges. Thus, the Monument to the Fallen is granted environmental protection and the Our Lady of Africa Market, integral. The Monument to Franco is not listed. As for the areas of Urban Environmental Protection, to those already known as García Escámez, the Cepsa neighborhood and the Sitjá Passage are added.
