Hotel entrepreneurs emphasize that the island planning makes clear the exclusive tourist use of said facility
The Board of Directors of the Federation of Hospitality and Tourism Entrepreneurs of Las Palmas (FEHT) has today urged compliance with the legal provisions on the permitted uses of the Santa Águeda dock, in Arguineguín, once the expiration of the concession for its industrial use by a cement company. For tourism entrepreneurs, compliance with the island territorial regulations is inexcusable, which provides for the exclusive tourist use of the aforementioned dock, which also constitutes “an opportunity for the development of quality activities in the best expansion area of the municipality of San Bartolomé. of Tirajana.” And, according to this evidence, the mixed use of said port is excluded, as proposed by the regional government through the public entity Puertos Canarios.
On this matter, the FEHT has reminded all public administrations of their obligation to guarantee compliance with urban planning legality in this matter, in defense of legal security for economic agents and the general interest of the municipality and the island. In particular, the tourism employers' association refers to the call, for next Monday, November 28, of the board of directors of Puertos Canarios, which includes in its agenda a favorable agreement for the processing and granting of a new industrial concession title for the occupation of the public domain in the port of Santa Agueda. But, the FEHT emphasizes, it cannot ignore current legislation.
For the reasons indicated, the granting of a new industrial concession in the terms proposed by the managing director of Puertos Canarios would violate territorial and urban planning, since, points out the Board of Directors of the FEHT, “the granting of a new concessional title is not possible. that prolongs in time the current industrial or commercial use of the port of Santa Águeda", since this would openly contravene the provisions contained in the current island planning, which foresees the forced transformation of the current industrial or commercial port, once the concession expires, in a sports and leisure facility at the service of the new land uses contemplated by the Gran Canaria Island Planning Plan.
The FEHT also warns about the failure to comply with the procedural steps required in said proposal, already incompatible with island planning, and adds that the adoption of an agreement such as the one proposed, favorable to the processing and granting of a new concessional title, is inadmissible, without that the administrative file has been processed, without the publicity and public information procedures having been complied with, without having analyzed the allegations that may be formulated in these procedures, without the mandatory report from the managing director of the public entity on the requested concession, and without a report having been obtained from the General Directorate of Industry of the Government of the Canary Islands. Furthermore, it is not possible to grant a new concession over the port of Santa Águeda invoking an alleged but absolutely non-existent relationship of accessory of the activity with respect to the mining concession, since the concession of industrial use in the dock has never had any legal link with the extraction. of minerals.
Finally, the tourism businessmen emphasize that the direct granting to the cement company of a new concession title, in the intended terms, "would openly violate the principles of advertising and competitive competition that must necessarily be respected in the granting of any public concession." For the FEHT, it is not possible to propose a new concession without respecting these principles or convening the relevant competitive bidding procedure in which all potential interested parties in the use and exploitation of port facilities can participate.
