Jennifer Miranda, mayor of Granadilla de Abona (PSOE), announced on Thursday that she refuses to attend the meeting called by Fernando Clavijo (CC), President of the Government of the Canary Islands, along with the mayor of Adeje, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga (PSOE), to find a solution to the projects of the luxury La Tejita hotel on the Granadilla coast and the Cuna del Alma urbanization in the Adeje area.
Furthermore, Miranda has urged Rosa Dávila, President of the Tenerife Island Council (CC), who is also expected to attend Friday’s meeting – which the mayor of Adeje will attend – to invest half of the €44 million budgeted for the Motor Circuit, specifically planned in the hills of Granadilla, in purchasing the La Tejita plot where the Viqueira Group is building a hotel.
The mayor of Granadilla expressed on Thursday, in statements gathered by the Efe agency at a press conference very close to the hotel construction site, that she made this decision in light of Clavijo’s statements and other members of the regional government’s refusal to acquire the plot where the La Tejita hotel is being built, a “symbol of the need for a change” in the Canary Islands’ economic model.
Jennifer Miranda, Mayor of Granadilla de Abona, during her press conference on Thursday. / María Pisaca
Miranda understands that Clavijo’s intention with Friday’s meeting is to “target” the socialist mayors of Granadilla and Adeje to address two controversial projects, the La Tejita hotel and Cuna del Alma, hence her rejection of the invitation.
Jennifer Miranda understands that Clavijo’s intention with Friday’s meeting is to “target” the socialist mayors of Granadilla and Adeje to address two projects that have stirred controversy
Miranda believes that the purpose of this meeting is “a political makeover operation” and has called on the President of the Canary Islands Government and the President of the Tenerife Island Council to visit the hotel construction site and the coastal public domain area affected by the project, as she has “the feeling” that “they are not aware of it.”
According to statements reported by Efe, Miranda has expressed that Clavijo’s proposals regarding the La Tejita hotel aim to “shift the focus” from the Canary Islands Government and “target” the PSOE, urging the State to acquire the plot, also through the mayors of Granadilla and Adeje.
Miranda denied that the Granadilla City Council is primarily responsible for granting Viqueira Group the permits to build the La Tejita hotel, as Clavijo and Dávila had claimed, noting that the southern municipality could not have granted the license without the sectorial authorizations first issued by the Government and the Island Council.
Miranda denied that the Granadilla City Council is primarily responsible for granting Viqueira Group the permits to build the La Tejita hotel, as Clavijo and Dávila had claimed
Regarding the conditions set by Rosa Dávila, Tenerife Island Council President, to support Granadilla in “saving La Tejita,” she argued that Granadilla City Council “cannot arbitrarily and discretionally review” the license without the necessary assessments from the Canary Islands Government and the Island Council that formed the basis of it.
She has rejected, as reported by Efe, “the technical arguments” given by the Canary Islands Government for not acquiring the La Tejita hotel plot, as there is an agreement with the developer reached by the previous regional government, amounting to €25 million to be paid in three instalments.
Jennifer Miranda also revealed that last week she met with the project developer, from the Viqueira Group, and reiterated her willingness to sell the plot.
With a price review amounting to an additional €200,000.
Status of the construction works of a luxury hotel in La Tejita, on the coast of Granadilla de Abona. / María Pisaca
Jennifer Miranda fully agrees with Fernando Clavijo’s reflection that we need to “reset, review” the economic and social model.
This commitment could involve the local Corporation investing between two and three million euros, but she emphasized that she cannot “mortgage the future” of the residents “for ten, fifteen years,” by investing almost half of its budget in this plot rescue operation.
Jennifer Miranda has reiterated that “the overall social fatigue” in the Canary Islands “compels us as public officials to make courageous decisions” and has called for a debate on “the major infrastructures” needed in the Canary Islands, such as “better hospitals, new schools,” mobility improvement actions, and not “megaprojects like the motor circuit” or those linked to hotel companies that “do not dignify the Canary Islands.”
The hotel developer in La Tejita, Grupo Viqueira, has resumed construction on the coast of Granadilla de Abona, which began in May 2019 and was halted in May 2021. This is after receiving approval from the Canary Islands High Court (TSJC), which confirms the legality of the urban initiative.
Three court decisions support the company promoting the construction of the hotel, a luxury establishment with 883 beds called La Tejita Beach Club Resort. These are judgments from the contentious-administrative chamber of the TSJC, with cost allocation to the corresponding bodies, as a result of the illegal stoppages of construction four years ago ordered by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge and by the Canarian Agency for the Protection of Natural Spaces.
Activists try to stop the construction of the luxury hotel being built in La Tejita. / Andrés Gutiérrez
Costas and the construction company Grupo Viqueira are in a dispute over the construction of the luxury hotel in La Tejita, in El Médano. The Directorate General of the Coast and the Sea, under the Ministry of Ecological Transition, informed Grupo Viqueira on Tuesday, April 23rd, through a written communication to proceed with the immediate cessation of the works on the hotel “in the maritime-terrestrial public domain” for not having submitted the required documentation to continue with the proceedings concerning these works.
The next day, the company responded with a statement stating that this requirement “is null and void” because “it lacks any legal backing, and the works are supported by all the required legal documents.”
