10 years of the cold war between Lopesan and RIU over the Oasis

The train crash continues to exist even though the parties deny it. It was 2013 when the Gran Canaria Council suspended the license it had to demolish the Oasis Maspalomas hotel and build a new one on that same plot in order to protect the area as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC). The move was in Las Palmas because in the south of Gran Canaria the blood did not reach the Tunte ravine. That generated a cold war of which Lopesan and RIU have not yet buried the hatchet and led to the departure of José MIguel Bravo de Laguna from the PP in 2015, who received pressure even from the German Embassy in Madrid on account of the interests of TUI in the accommodation business in the south of Gran Canaria. The judicial battle included in 2017 that Pedro Horrach, prosecutor in the Nóos case, signed with RIU for the Oasis Hotel litigation in Maspalomas. 65 million euros were at stake in a reform.

 

 

The Balearic chain RIU told the Gran Canaria Council that it has "extensive technical documentation" to demonstrate that the Oasis Maspalomas hotel lacks "values ​​and merits" that could be protected as an asset of cultural interest (BIC) and that its condition already prevents undertake any reform. The construction of a new hotel on the plot that the RIU Oasis Maspalomas has occupied for decades sparked widespread controversy last term, after Lopesan tried to stop it by requesting the Gran Canaria Cabildo that the old building be protected as an asset of cultural interest by its architectural value. RIU would make the mistake of the feeling of Canarian nature of tourism in the south of Gran Canaria and Lopesan won the empire of monopoly forgetting that in the Saint Eustasius saint's day he reangelized pagans in Doubs and Bavaria and created the first double monastery of religious men and women living together in the same place . He is credited with the miracle of the healing of Saint Salaberga when she was a child. Saint Eustasius, name of the president of the business group, was a French saint of great work in the XNUMXth century.

The Cabildo of Gran Canaria did not respond to RIU's request, but instead decided to initiate a declaration of property of cultural interest for the entire palm grove of the Maspalomas oasis, due to its historical connection with Columbus' voyages to America. However, the Canarian Government rejected the file, not finding it justified. In principle, this gave RIU free rein to renovate the hotel, but its project has been paralyzed since the end of 2015 by the Contentious Administrative Court number 3 of Gran Canaria, which has annulled the demolition and new construction license until it is clarified. if part of the land it occupies is affected by the protection of the Maspalomas Natural Reserve. A month after that ruling was known, Riu tried to unblock its project by offering the administrations a modification that substantially reduced the dimensions of the new building and raised the investment it was committed to making to 65 million euros.

 

 

In 2017 there was a ruling rejecting RIU's request for compensation for the suspension of the demolition license for the Oasis Hotel. RIU's lawsuit argued that the Gran Canaria Council's claim to protect the Maspalomas Oasis as a BIC, with the category of historical site, due to its relationship with the voyages of the Discovery of America, lacked justification and, furthermore, incurred “ diversion of power”, because, in his opinion, it served to favor the interests of his competitor, the Lopesan hotel group.

This ruling by the Contentious Administrative Court number 6 was dated the same day, July 28, 2017, on which the Superior Court of Justice of Canaria made public the ruling that supported the position of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria and condemned the Government of Canary Islands to protect the Maspalomas Oasis as BIC, something that the Executive of Paulino Rivero (CC) opposed in 2014.

In this lawsuit, RIU demanded several things: annul the initiation procedure of the BIC of Maspalomas, revoke the provision that suspended its licenses to build a new hotel on the plot of the still existing establishment and that the Cabildo compensate it for "the damages caused" by those decisions. Judge Sagrario Tovar recalled that the TSJC has just ruled on the merits of this litigation by ordering the Canary Islands Government to protect the Maspalomas Oasis as BIC, in a ruling “that answers the questions” that RIU raises.

The TSJC considered it justified to link this natural space in the south of the island with Columbus's voyages, because this is corroborated by the eleven reports that were included in the file processed by the Gran Canaria Council to ask the Government to approve the BIC, including that of the Canary Islands Historical Heritage Council itself. The Government of Paulino Rivero refused to accept this BIC because it perceived a “diversion of power” in it - this is what the decree that denied its approval literally said - in a position that has also been corrected by the recent ruling of the TSJC.

“It is unsustainable for an administrative and governing body of an Administration to classify the actions of another Administration as involving a misuse of power, since it neither has the neutral character that its application requires, nor does it occur in a contradictory procedure, nor is there a rule that enable it to do so,” said the magistrates who signed that resolution, before adding that they did not observe such a deviation of power either. The TSJC also recalled that the declaration of that BIC "by itself does not prevent the construction of a large hotel in the area." Court number 6 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria did not add any more arguments than those already presented by that ruling of the TSJC, with the exception of remembering that the suspension of the licenses about which RIU complained is an effect derived from the initiation of the BIC and provided for in the legal procedure that regulates its processing. Against this ruling, the Balearic hotel group was able to file an appeal before the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the TSJC, the same one that resolved the origin of the BIC in the litigation between the Cabildo of Gran Canaria and the Government of the Canary Islands.