The Local Government Board of La Laguna yesterday approved the transfer of 400,000 euros to the Urban Planning Department to draw up the first Management Plan for the Historic City. The autonomous body will put out to tender the drafting of this document through four lots or complementary documents that will contain the strategic and operational plans, mobility and design of open spaces, lighting and participation and communication. This will require the involvement and consensus of neighbourhood and specialised entities, socio-economic sectors, institutions, etc.
Unesco establishes that cities declared World Heritage must have a Management Plan to ensure the conservation and sustainable management of their heritage values. It considers these documents essential to maintain the integrity of the outstanding universal values of the sites and to address contemporary challenges, ensuring that heritage is effectively conserved, while fostering sustainable urban development and promoting the active participation of citizens and local actors in its conservation.
An obligation
The inscription of the historic complex on the World Heritage List implies the obligation to draw up this Historic City Management Plan in order to preserve its ‘outstanding universal value’. Properties that have been declared beforehand have to adapt to this requirement.
The Strategic and Operational Plan is ‘the bulk’ of the document. It defines the policy strategies for the conservation and protection of the historic complex, the buffer zone and the surrounding area. It responds to the need for a documented management system to ensure the effective protection of the assets for present and future generations.
The Mobility and Open Space Design Plan consists of developing a transit model adapted to the physical and heritage conditions of the environment, as well as planning ‘quality’ public spaces in the historic complex and its immediate surroundings and contemplating infrastructures, land use and spatial relations to guarantee the integration of the site in its territory.
Lighting and neighbours
With regard to the Lighting Plan, it must design a system that respects the heritage character and reinforces the safety and environmental quality of the site. It must consider the impact assessments of the interventions to avoid affecting the heritage.
In the framework of participation and communication, the document should set out strategies to ensure citizen involvement in view of the obligation to establish participatory and inclusive mechanisms ‘and systems of collaborative governance’. It should involve both the population and the activity of the historic site and those in the surrounding area.
Complying with Unesco
With an estimated lifespan of ten years, the first Historic City Management Plan will ensure compliance with Unesco guidelines. Once approved, the implementation and monitoring phase will begin, in which the drafting teams will accompany its development and ensure the follow-up and adaptation of the planned measures.
In order to provide the plan with flexibility and the capacity to adjust to emerging needs, pilot experiments will be carried out, the results of which will feed into a process of continuous improvement. These results will lead to specific adjustments to the initial document.
This Management Plan complements the existing Special Protection Plan. The latter focus primarily on conservation and legal protection, while the management plans have a more general focus on conservation and legal protection.
Guaranteeing the future
Adolfo Cordobés, Councillor for Spatial Planning and Cultural Heritage, points out that the Plan has to respond to the challenge the municipality has set itself of ‘guaranteeing that the contemporary and future needs of the residents of the historic city are compatible with the protection and preservation of the exceptional universal value that has earned it its declaration as a World Heritage Site by Unesco’. The mayor claims the Plan as ‘a new road map, the result of the analysis of these 25 years of experience as a World Heritage City, which will be agreed with all the citizens’.