Two ghost kitchens of madridinside Imperial Promenade, 6 and in Faucets, 18were cancelled because they were considered illegal. This was signed by two new sentences of the Administrative Litigation Court number 8.
The second has partially agreed with the community of owners of several communities such as Paseo Imperial, 4, 6 and 21, among others, against the resolution of the Madrid City Council Activities Agency for May 2021. This planning permission authorises the carrying out of a food production activity for subsequent distribution in twelve kitchens, specific packaging work and exterior work at Imperial, 6, inside a building which also contains 250 dwellings, as indicated in the judgment, to which you have had access. Europe Press.
The applicants told the court that the City Council had granted a license “without carrying out the mandatory environmental assessment of said industrial activity and without collecting technical and legal reports to monitor compliance with the regulations, relying solely on a certificate of urban planning compliance issued by the Collaborating urban planning entity.
They criticized the fact that it was a private company and not a public agent that carried out the control of compliance with municipal regulations, they concluded that the project presented “did not require the processing of the municipal procedure for environmental assessment of activities.” For this reason, they considered that there had been violated applicable regulations.
“The omission of the mandatory legal report is essential and decisive for the nullity of the granted license, and its absence is also regrettable because, surely, if a legal report itself had been issued, it would have shown that the planned activity, due to its implications, required a specific environmental assessment,” the judgment states.
“Misuse of functions” by the municipal council
The judgment considers that thus “the defendant municipal council failed in its duty, both the processing of the environmental assessment procedure and the obligation to adequately qualify the activity for which the relevant authorisation has been requested, in order to decide on the appropriate procedure, since the planned activity involves not only the preparation of meals, but also their packaging, storage and distribution and, all this, on a large scale”, such as twelve industrial kitchens, in a residential environment.
The court goes on to state that this is “an activity which, considered as a whole and in the building in which it is carried out and its surroundings, must be considered as boring, unhealthy, harmful or dangerous.”
The first sentence, pronounced the day before, on September 11, is in accordance with the Neighborhood association against industrial kitchens and the community of owners of 1 Quintiliano Street against the resolution of the Activities Agency of November 2020, which granted planning permission for the preparation of ready-made meals for distribution and renovation works on the property at Canillas Street, 18, inside a building which also houses 276 homes.
The court’s arguments are similar. Both convictions are subject to appeal and do not involve the imposition of costs. In addition, Immaculate Sanz, The vice-mayor of Madrid, said on this subject that “they are studying it”. “They have just arrived and, therefore, we must see them in detail with the legal services, who will study them and see if there are appeals or appeals and what arguments are put forward to establish a firmer criterion.”
