In the south of Lanzarote, located on the seafront, the illegal Papagayo Arena hotel survives. Its large seven-story white building interrupts the view of the natural monument of Los Ajaches, an immense volcanic formation that extends over the municipality of Yaiza. Next to it, this four-star tourist complex with 485 rooms continues to operate, even though the Ministry of Justice has canceled its building permit, illegally granted by the former mayor José Francisco Reyes, currently in prison for corruption. The current Sandos Papagayo still exists, although it is one of the symbols of the darkest period of the island, and the battle for its legalization is blocked in the courts and public administrations.
The history of the Papagayo Arena began on May 29, 1998, when the developer Explotaciones Hoteleras Nueva Valencia SL requested a license to build a 764-bed, twelve-story hotel on plots 1 and 2 of the Las Coloradas Partial Plan. In just three days, on June 1, the mayor granted the authorization. In record time, the politician not only gave the green light to this project, but also simultaneously promoted more than 1,500 tourist sites. The phrase called the Yate case is strong and claims that Reyes designed a plan to enrich himself during his term of office, making his position “a way of doing business.”
Yaiza was then the urban jewel of the island, a municipality characterized by virgin beaches and a pleasant climate and where dozens of companies wanted to realize their large tourism projects. The mayor at the time took advantage of these ingredients to patent “developer urban planning”, as shown in the Yate ruling. The politician “demanded financial sums” from developers with interests in the urban development of Yaiza under the “pretext of speeding up licensing procedures”, omitting requirements such as legal reports or tourist authorization for complexes.
In order to build the Papagayo Arena, the City Council unified two plots. Thus, the construction of the hotel made a public access road to the beach disappear. In addition, the complex has more floors and more height than allowed and does not respect the setbacks established for two separate plots. “With its illegal actions, it has caused a total alteration of the urban reality of Yaiza,” the sentence reads.
The search for a solution to restore legality in Yaiza has been going on for more than two decades. The last episode of the legal struggle dates back to December 2023, when the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) upheld an appeal filed by the property and revoked an order in which it was agreed to restore the legality of urban planning in the area. . Now, the legalization of the hotel is in the hands of the City Council. Already in 2013, the municipal corporation required the owners to legalize the works within a maximum period of three months, but they have not yet done so.
In order to legalize the hotel, the municipality must now overcome a new obstacle. The City Hall emphasizes that it cannot issue a building permit for the complex without Costas’ approval. This year, the General Directorate of the Coast and the Sea placed the complex in the coastal protection zone, revising the beach boundary and confirming that the easement is 100 meters and not 20. The coastal resolution orders “to rectify the legal situations registered contradictory with the approved demarcation. Yaiza also demands that the hotel return to the population the public road that it illegally occupied, which would require the demolition of a good part of the building. Another essential condition is that the Cabildo grant the hotel a tourist authorization. A procedure that the highest island society has already agreed to begin.
In recent months, the hotel has returned to the eye of the hurricane following a complaint filed with the Arrecife Public Prosecutor’s Office. The civic association The sun rises for everyone denounced the government of the Canary Islands and the municipality of Yaiza for their inaction in “disobeying firm judicial resolutions and failing in their duty to prosecute crimes.” According to the association, the persistence of the situation only benefits the complex, which continues to operate at full capacity and collect income from its clients, who enjoy “exclusively” a privatized public beach.
The Papagayo Arena also received financial aid of 2.45 million euros from the Government of the Canary Islands. The Regional Executive granted this subsidy to the companies of the Archipelago to compensate for the losses they suffered during the hardest part of the coronavirus pandemic. However, the hotel’s losses, according to information published in the Mercantile Registry, were lower than the amount received. In 2020, the losses were 1.48 million euros and in 2021, 51,237 euros. Of course, its net worth was 40.91 million.
Last August, the government chaired by Fernando Clavijo (Canarian Coalition) signed a collaboration agreement with Papagayo Arena SL to promote the training of staff and unemployed people with a view to their possible integration into the company. This agreement does not imply any financial contribution and will come into force if the hotel obtains the building permit.
Corruption and tourist overpopulation
The authorization of new tourist beds keeps the population of Lanzarote on alert today. The movement against the saturation of the islands has spread throughout the archipelago, which has taken to the streets to demand measures against the destruction of the natural environment by the tourism sector and solutions to homelessness. The overcrowding that crosses the island of rabbits also bears the mark of corruption. The judgment in the Yate case, handed down in 2017, highlights that the massive authorization of licenses by the Yaiza city council did not take into account the burden of construction on the island. Thousands of places were granted “without restriction” against the own determinations of the Council, the body responsible for “ensuring the adequate harmonization and the sustainable and adequate growth of the construction load on the island.”
The municipal government has also failed to take into account the fact that “uncontrolled growth could affect the basic services of the island of Lanzarote, such as water and electricity.” The island is currently mired in a water crisis, with daily water cuts in homes and farms. The report on carrying capacity commissioned during the last legislature by the Island Council already warned that the island, due to its “unstoppable” growth, “has far exceeded” the risk thresholds related to its carrying capacity. The lack of control makes this biosphere reserve a “vulnerable” space, due to its limited resources and the fragility of its ecosystems.
