SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Oct 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The insular director of Coordination and Support to the President of the Council of Tenerife, Aarón Afonso, assured this Friday before the Plenary of the corporation that the project for the rehabilitation of the Taco mountain continues its processing with the necessary requirements so that it can be executed and given response to the needs of the residents of the neighborhoods of the metropolitan area but also of the rest of the island, considering it a “strategic project”.
This was explained in the appearance on the status of implementation and the forecasts of the Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategy (EDUSI), in which he reported that the commitment of the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo and the municipalities of La Laguna and Santa Cruz to promote this project.
“In the month of June a protocol was sent to these administrations to verify that political will to carry out the regeneration of the Taco mountain, a protocol to which the City Council of La Laguna has already approved, and to which the City Council of Santa Cruz still does not respond, despite the fact that 60 percent of the scope of action belongs to that municipality, “said the island director.
Afonso appreciated the interest shown by the Lagunero mayor, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, “for whom this project is a priority”, and regretted that the mayor of Santa Cruz has not yet expressed his will, so he invited him “to take the necessary steps to sign the commitment to manage this matter, within the scope of its expropriation powers and urban discipline, and thus join the effort being made by the rest of the administrations “.
In this sense, he highlighted that the Roads area of the Government of the Canary Islands is promoting the actions required in said protocol, such as the tender for works on the Ofra-El Chorrillo highway, “which will allow, finally, the A bridge that leads nowhere and that passes through the TF-5, connect with the roundabout that is above the Hospital de La Candelaria “.
The island director recalled that the Taco mountain regeneration project was included in the European EDUSI strategy in 2016 and that, upon the arrival of the current government team to the Cabildo, in July 2019, a letter was received from the Ministry of Finance informing the Cabildo of the null execution of the aforementioned strategy and warning of the breach of the commitment to execute 30 percent of the actions, which should have been carried out by December 31, 2019.
Afonso also pointed out that the proposal that was presented in 2016 to obtain European financing indicated that the municipalities of Santa Cruz and La Laguna shared the ownership of the land on which they had to act.
“However, a subsequent commission from Gestur determined that most of the land was privately owned and that only the amount of the valuation of the land and buildings to carry out the action would exceed 22 million euros, when the rehabilitation of the Urban land on the Taco mountain had financing of 2.6 million euros, therefore, 10 times less than what the acquisition of the plots cost, “he said.
SIX YEARS OF PROJECT
In addition, it considered relevant the fact that upon arrival at the island corporation, the technicians communicated to the current government team the impossibility of carrying out the project within the established deadlines, since the planning of the actions to be carried out from the point of Urban planning view would require the involvement of the two administrations in whose municipal area the land is located and any action would far exceed the deadline established for executing the strategy (initially, December 2022, and now, after the extension, December 2023) , estimating in a temporary period that exceeds 6 years.
Despite this, the island director revealed the Cabildo’s commitment to carry out this project included in the EDUSI, “since it involves recovering a space for citizenship that is absolutely essential for the socioeconomic development of the neighborhoods of the surroundings of the Taco mountain, for which we must count on the essential joint work between the administrations and the real will to exercise the competences that have been attributed to each one “.
On the other hand, Aarón Afonso gave details of the state of execution of other projects included in the EDUSI, among them, the regeneration action of the archaeological spaces of the Barranco del Muerto, the Open Data Tenerife project, the projects of the 18 parks of the Southwest , the Finca Escuder or the network of community centers to improve the digital skills of citizens.
