The story of the Las Teresitas mamotreto in Tenerife is not an exception, but rather one more chapter in a long tradition of attempts to hit the Spanish coast, where for decades the brick advanced on beaches, marshes and cliffs in the heat of express reclassifications, opaque agreements and the promise of a tourist development that almost never arrived as had been announced.
This was his story.
Great balls with sea views. From Marbella to El Algarrobico, passing through ghost housing estates, illegal hotels and seafronts converted into political currency, the coast has been one of the great scenes of speculation, and each new case reminds us of the extent to which the conflict between public interest and private ambition has marked the transformation (and often the degradation) of the coastal landscape in Spain.
A symbol that was born crooked. The Las Teresitas mammoth began to raise suspicions long before it became a court case on the island of Tenerife because it appeared where it should not and how it should not, emerging without explanation in the public domain of maritime land, without visible signs and without anyone clearly knowing what was being built in front of the beach or under what legal protection.
It was the persistent gaze of neighbors like Lola Schneider that set off the first alarms and turned that concrete skeleton into something more than just an ugly work: it became physical proof that a project was being carried out on the beach front that seemed to be ahead of the law and urban planning logic.
Change the beach. Behind the mammoth was the ambition to transform Las Teresitas into a large urban beach of European reference, with a plan signed by Dominique Perrault that promised to bury parking lots, create open squares and reorganize access to the sea.
On paper, the visible mass should be buried and become invisible infrastructure at the service of public space, but the partial execution and the breakdown of the balance between administrations turned that promise into an abandoned, gray and dominant structure that ended up being just the opposite of what the project claimed to pursue.
The ball The construction of the parking lot was inserted in the heart of the so-called Las Teresitas ballpark, occupying easements and land in the public domain without the mandatory authorizations from Costas and with substantial modifications to the original project.
The subsequent rulings made it clear that this was not a minor defect or a forgotten procedure, but rather a global breach of urban planning regulations, with works started without legal support while, in parallel, the City Council had purchased the beachfront land for more than 52 million euros in an operation that was already under judicial scrutiny.
Justice arrives. The stoppage of the works in 2007 marked the point of no return and paved the way for the investigation of the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, prompted by environmental and neighborhood complaints.
The judicial process ended with convictions for urban prevarication and crimes against territorial planning, confirmed by the Court, which unambiguously established that the mamotreto was built without valid authorization and on protected land, dismantling any subsequent attempt to reduce the problem to a simple question of partial legalization.
The political and criminal cost. Not only that. The sentences reached former councilors, technicians and senior officials, some of whom have already fully served their prison and disqualification sentences, while others remain banned from holding public office until the end of the decade.
The case was thus established as another branch of the great Las Teresitas scandal, with clear criminal responsibilities and an express obligation to restitute the damage caused, which included the demolition of the building at the expense of the convicted.
The demolition In 2017, a horrible mass that had remained in front of the beach for years was physically put to an end. The arrival of heavy machinery on the beach and the visible beginning of the demolition marked the material end of a story that had lasted for more than a decade.
The destruction of the concrete, carried out in compliance with a final sentence and after years of delays, symbolized the closing of a cycle in which the behemoth went from urban promise to abandoned ruin and, finally, to rubble, returning to the landscape a beach that had been kidnapped by the failure of a “punch.”
One more. If you will also, although the mamotreto physically disappeared and the sentences were considered fulfilled, its story remains as a permanent warning (one more) about the limits of uncontrolled urbanism, the fragility of the public domain in the face of political and economic interests and the Price that a city can pay when projects are imposed on legality.
Las Teresitas de Tenerife recovered space and horizon, but the mamotreto was placed in that monstrous row that is part of the collective memory of the Canary Islands and Spain: that of the emblems of how a city should not be built or, of course, its natural heritage managed.
Image | CARLOS TEIXIDOR CADENAS
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