Judge Nuria María del Prado Medina Martín, presiding over the Court of Contentious-Administrative number 4 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, has upheld the appeal against the City of Arona. In a ruling issued last Friday (January 24), it has been established that the land currently occupied by the sitting mayor, Fatima Lemes (PP), along with the other three councillors of her party, is affected. The judgement supports the complainants regarding the designation of this land for commercial purposes, who submitted an appeal. This change, instigated by businessman Diego Cano (promoter of the Arts Shopping Centre, which significantly contributed to the collapse of the PSOE Government), was sold two months later to the car rental firm Cicar for €5.5 million.
The Arona City Council was represented in this ordinary procedure by the lawyer of the Cabildo de Tenerife and also included Melifosi Consulting SL and Cicar as co-defendants. The complainants lodged a contentious appeal against the decision made by the councillor on June 15, 2018 (number 4,224), which granted a consolidated use licence to Melifosi Consulting. They sought to annul this decision, arguing that they met the legal criteria and that the appropriate process for that conversion had not been completed. The City Council did not contest the appeal, believing that a review had been initiated, stating that due to insufficient staff and resources it had not issued an explicit resolution, while the co-defendant companies opposed the declaration of nullity of the decision.
Regarding the City Council’s position of not contesting the appeal, the judge noted that “in essence, it is not necessary for the claims of the plaintiff.”
Moreover, the magistrate asserts that the appeal cannot be dismissed, as the two co-defendant companies addressed the City Council, which ultimately issued the resolution. It is common for those interested beneficiaries to oppose the annulment of the resolution, but their opposition is purely formal and cannot result in prejudice or justify the rejection of the appeal, considering the arguments and findings of the defendant. Consequently, the judge grants the appeal against that change of uses and does not impose any procedural costs on either party.
A case that precipitated the collapse of the PSOE government
This ruling consequently prevents the property from being utilised for the intended commercial purposes. The premises, which were previously occupied by companies such as Renault, had remained unused for years, with the land retained as rustic, while concurrently, improvement and expansion works were underway despite the adverse ruling last September from the environmental protection agency, a regional body.
Prior to this ruling, the last significant development was the stop-work order issued by Luis García on January 8, although he was dismissed by the mayor a week later. Currently, she governs in coalition with Vox and CC, although she lacks an outright majority unless the sole mayor of NC either enables or supports this arrangement from the outside (which currently appears unlikely). Although the controversy surrounding this property was not the sole reason for the rift between Lemes and Más por Arona, it is worth noting that on December 13, the conservative mayor met with Cicar’s director in the Canary Islands, Mamerto Cabrera. This meeting included urban planning technicians but did not extend an invitation to the then area mayor.
