Some may remember reports at the beginning of this year of a real estate broker in china advertising a large property (3m square meters) in the natural bioshpere reserve of GuyGuy (or GüiGüí as media & marketing types and the Las Palmas hipsters like to spell it) as having sparked panic among the Gran Canaria officialdom, as the threat of a Chinese millionaire suddenly taking ownership of one of the most important natural reserves on the island led many to fear the unthinkable…. that a prime piece of Gran Canaria was no longer to be owned by Gran Canaria.
Many of the more cynical commentators pointed out that this was surely a ruse, a strategy for gaining public attention, thereby compelling public opinion and the governing classes of Gran Canaria to avert a disaster, by instead ensuring the property could be owned by the island institutions themselves, and thereby forever protected from development… or some such narrative, no doubt of benefit to the owners who were trying to sell.
Well last week the Cabildo de Gran Canaria has announced, having reached an agreement with the owner of those lands of Guguy that still remained in private hands, to acquire the property for €3 million, that they will indeed be able to ensure that 100% of this public heritage land does remain in the hands of the Island Government, the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, according to the island president, Antonio Morales last Thursday 13th of September.
Last January a supposed buyer for this land, totalling 10% of Guguy, supposedly arranged to acquire the property for €6 million, although the change of hands did not affect in any way the fact that you could not build or develop on the land due to the stringent protection of the natural space.
In any case, the Cabildo exercised its right of pre-emption and retraction, its technicians studied the value of the land and appraised it for half the price, for three million euros. This amount has been accepted by the owner and the sale has been agreed, and the procedure to formalise the sale has begun with the aim of signing it between December and January.
The president of the Cabildo has expressed his satisfaction with having been able to reach this agreement that also meets the public outcry and citizens´ demands that the entire Special Natural Reserve of Guguy be kept as public land, in this case under the guardianship of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria and the Municipal Council of La Aldea, and that this will also facilitate the journey towards its possible declaration as a Spanish National Park together with Inagua, Tamadaba and Roque Nublo
