Icod de los Vinos Council Closes Planning Department

The Icod de los Vinos City Council has decided to close down its Municipal Urban Planning Management department. This decision was made during an urgent council meeting. According to Jorge González Socas, the Urban Planning Councilor who led the move, the department "wasn't achieving its main goal." That goal was to provide the Council with a quick, expert external tool for handling urban planning, heritage, and environmental matters.

The proposal passed with votes from Alternativa Icodense (AI), the majority party in the current government, and three independent councilors (two formerly from the Popular Party, one from Coalición Canaria). However, Alternativa Icodense's coalition partner, Gerardo Rizo from the PSOE party, disagreed, calling it a "mistaken decision." He stated that his party doesn't support the move "in any way," emphasizing that such major decisions should involve "transparency, dialogue, and real participation."

Jorge González explained that the urban planning department was "mostly theoretical." He said that since he joined the City Council in 2023, he spoke with technical staff who all agreed the department wasn't fulfilling its purpose. It never had its own dedicated staff, meaning it couldn't operate independently. "We have only one municipal architect who has to divide their time between this department and other council projects," he noted. He added that the Icod de los Vinos City Council itself has "very few staff and huge shortages, and this problem was also present in the urban planning body."

Another reason for closing the department, he added, was its inefficiency. "It's not an effective tool, either administratively or financially," he said. "Its budget isn't spent, and it's not quick at issuing licenses, for example. It simply doesn't make things better."

Councilor González felt there were only two choices: "Ignore the problem and carry on as before, or decide to dissolve it." He clarified, "We haven't gotten rid of urban planning itself, but rather a structure that wasn't working. We will continue to do this work with the existing City Council staff, avoiding that duplication."

Addressing the opposition from his coalition partner, Gerardo Rizo (PSOE), González stated, "We tried to explain that the Municipal Urban Planning Management was hindering other operations and that it wouldn't be possible to staff it properly. They didn't see it that way, so we sought support from the rest of the council. In any political agreement, there are always areas of agreement and disagreement."

The Municipal Urban Planning Management department was established in Icod de los Vinos in 2007, during Diego Afonso's (CC) government, with Francis González (who was mayor in the previous term) as the responsible councilor. González Socas emphasized, "This isn't about fighting over something they created. It's purely a matter of efficiency." He added that "all parties have been in charge of the Icod de los Vinos City Council since this urban planning body was created, and none of them ever staffed it to allow it to work independently."