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The leader of PP-AV, Marco Aurelio Pérez, has once again shown the support of his political party for the Siam Park water park in San Bartolomé de Tirajana and has warned the promoters of the project “to stop paying attention to the songs of siren of Antonio Morales and Nueva Canarias (NC)” so that this investment can finally materialize after the ruling of the Supreme Court that ratifies the nullity of the Plan for Modernization, Improvement and Increase of Competitiveness (PMM) of 2015 in the field of El Veril that gave legal coverage to this action.
In a press appearance with the AV-PP spokesperson, Élena Álamo, and other councilors of the municipal group, Marco Aurelio Pérez pointed out that during his time as mayor of San Bartolomé de Tirajana he always defended “the legality of the project and the general interests of the municipality", which is why in 2014 it warned the promoters, Loro Parque SA, that they had to comply with the regulations and "develop an urbanization project with the corresponding uses" in order to obtain the construction license, as later endorsed by the Justice through two favorable rulings to the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council.
“We have always, from the first minute, supported the installation of Siam Park in the South of Gran Canaria, but it has been a difficult, complex task with many ups and downs from the point of view of the legal management of a project that starts in in 2012, 10 years ago, and it has had many obstacles despite the fact that it was declared of strategic interest by the Government of the Canary Islands in September 2015,” he stressed.
Limpets and burgates
According to Marco Aurelio Pérez, it is from May 2015, after the arrival of NC to the Presidency of the Cabildo, when the first obstacles to the water park begin to arise. One of them in December 2016, in the middle of the Constitutional Bridge, “when Mr. Morales sent Historical Heritage officials to find limpets and burghs on the Siam Park plot, which forced all administrative procedures to stop.”
“Since Morales had said NO to this project, we had to pull [from the City Council] the Government of the Canary Islands so that, through the General Directorate of Heritage, it would prepare a report, sent on March 14, 2017, in the "It is concluded that the remains found were minimal" and the processing of the project could continue.
After this setback, the City Council subsequently warned the investor that, in order to grant the building license, it was necessary to present an urbanization project and a management project. “And here the first disagreements arise with the promoter”, who was unsuccessfully required to correct the documentation, since the park was located on public domain land owned by the State, not Loro Parque SA, which entails compensation. of 11 million euros for urban use.
And what has been done then, since the entry of PSOE, NC, CC and Cs into the municipal government of San Bartolomé de Tirajana in May 2019 until now? "From the point of view of the administrative procedure, absolutely nothing has been done, although they were full of words saying that in a month they were going to unblock the Siam Park project, but the only thing we have today is a ruling from the Supreme Court and a claim from the Treasury on October 17, 2019 that the City Council did not respond to until two and a half years later and that is still unresolved today.”
Finally, between February and May 2020, the developer presents the documentation that the City Council had been demanding from him since the previous mandate, in which he also recognizes that he is obliged to pay 10% of the use, quantified at 2.821.000, to the municipal coffers. euros.
Once this procedure was completed, “they could have taken the opportunity since February 2020 to approve the management and urbanization project and grant the building license, but they did not do so, but rather they came quickly and running on March 31, when the Supreme Court had already taken knowledge of the ruling” that ratifies the nullity of the PMM of El Veril, as also happened with the PMM of Maspalomas Costa Canaria after a challenge by former councilor Ángel López, from Nueva Canarias, a party “that has always been against tourist development of San Bartolomé de Tirajana”.
“The San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council was correctly processing the Siam Park project during my time as mayor, but the promoter begins to pay attention to the new political advisor, Mr. Morales, and there we have the consequences: license denied by the courts , PMM annulled by the courts and starting over from scratch,” he lamented.
At this point, Marco Aurelio Pérez rejected the solution launched by the president of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria to declare the water park as a project of island interest, since, according to article 123 of Law 4/2017, of July 13, on Land and Protected Natural Spaces of the Canary Islands, this figure is only applicable in case of unexpected needs or urgent actions, which is not the case, and could be interpreted by Justice as an attempt to "circumvent" a Supreme Court ruling that must be executed.
In his opinion, the only way out is “for the promoter, and not the island public administration, to take the initiative from now on and begin processing the project again in accordance with current urban planning regulations, and thus the park aquatic could be unlocked in approximately a year and a half.”
“We, for our part, will always continue to support this investment or any other that represents an improvement in the tourist offer of San Bartolomé de Tirajana and the Island of Gran Canaria,” concluded the PP-AV leader.