The Arona City Council has dismissed the idea of declaring the municipality a distressed area, as stated by the Councillor for Urban Planning, Luis García, in Onda Tenerife, who emphasised the establishment of a public housing company. He also affirmed that the hundred illegal houses constructed in Lomo Negro “cannot be legalised even by altering the ordinance.”
When questioned about the municipal government’s recent decision in Granadilla de Abona to designate its area as a distressed zone at the month’s end, Luis García ruled out this possibility for Arona. He remarked, “We have chosen not to endorse the concept of a distressed zone because, as demonstrated in other regions at the national level, it is a detrimental action that sounds appealing in theory and aims well but ultimately manifests the complete opposite in practice. A considerable number of housing units are withdrawn from the market since the term ‘distressed’ implies that rental prices are regulated, which leads many property owners to remove their homes from the market, thereby prompting an increase in public housing prices, so to speak.”
For him, the housing policy revolves around “two main avenues we are pursuing in Arona, such as relinquishing municipal land so that other authorities like the Cabildo or the Government of the Canary Islands, even the State, can establish public housing in the municipality, alongside creating a public housing company. Our colleague Sebastián Roque has been working on this for several months, allowing the City Council to implement projects in our area aiming to develop public housing. These are the two primary focuses in housing, and we hope they will yield results in the short to medium term, enabling us to provide homes within our municipality.”
In this context, the Urban Planning councillor highlighted that “the City Council possesses urban land, but regrettably, it is not always in locations equipped with public services. We are currently attempting to acquire land in various areas to ensure that individuals have the opportunity to choose homes in different parts of the municipality.”
Discussing housing further, there are approximately one hundred units in the illegal neighbourhood of Lomo Negro near El Fraile, which must be demolished following notifications dispatched to residents pursuant to a court ruling, as they have been constructed on agricultural land. Luis García firmly stated, “That land cannot be developed, even with planning instruments, until twenty years have elapsed since the last construction was initiated. The law is unequivocal. We have met several times with the residents and may do so again this week, proposing solutions involving not just the Arona administration but also seeking assistance from other authorities in addressing their concerns, aware that they have committed an illegality and have ongoing files. This will not be a brief process, and the solution will not be straightforward.”
He believes that the existence of illegal settlements in the municipality and the shortage of housing, amid a population surge of over one hundred thousand inhabitants, stems from “poor urban management over the last thirty years, favouring other land uses while public housing has been neglected. It is from this inadequate urban management that we face the challenges we currently encounter. We are a government firmly committed to prioritising housing as a fundamental aspect to ensure people can live with dignity and a quality of life that meets each family’s requirements, and we are intensely focused on this as a top priority.”
One of the issues that gave rise to corruption in the Arona case was connected to tourist licenses on residential land and vice versa. This leads us to ask: How has it become possible for most residential buildings in Los Cristianos to be transformed into tourist apartments?
