The fight against ghost kitchens has made the leap from the neighborhood fight to the courts. The independent councilor of the Mixed Group, Marta Higueras, formalized last Wednesday a lawsuit against the Madrid City Council for having granted a license to the 21 ghost kitchens on Calle Jos Calvo, 10, in the Tetun district of Madrid, outside the legally established procedure.
The claim was admitted for processing at the beginning of October by the Contentious-Administrative Court number 30 of Madrid, which required the City Council to submit the administrative file relating to the aforementioned kitchens. Upon receiving the documentation, Javier Flores, the lawyer handling the case, discovered that there were many more irregularities than anticipated and expanded the reasons in the formalization of the demand.
According to the complaint, to which GRAN MADRID has had access, the planning plan for the kitchens was not published in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid and during the processing of the file no official intervened nor was any technical or legal report prepared by the municipal services.
The processing of urban planning permits from the City Council is carried out through the collaborating urban entities (ECU)which are private companies supervised by the Activities Agency, an autonomous body attached to the Urban Development area, directed by Mariano Fuentes.
Councilor Marta Higueras puts the Activities Agency in the spotlight because there are already too many irregular license cases. If we corroborate that this is happening in more activities and files, the next step to take will be to go to criminal proceedings to purify responsibilities in the direction of this agency, highlights the mayor.
In the case of the Jos Calvo kitchens, the City Council granted the license with the certificate of conformity from the collaborating entity European Quality Assurance, without any intervention by civil servants, which implies the participation of a private company. in the exercise of public powers in the safeguarding of the general interests of Madridaccording to the claim.
No legal report
The ordinance for the opening of economic activities allows the technical report to be replaced by the certificate of conformity carried out by the collaborating entity, but a legal report is necessary, as reflected in the Land Law of the Community of Madrid. However, there is no legal opinion in the kitchen file, according to the complaint filed.
Another of the irregularities detected is that the sheet of the planning plan that determines the zonal norm that is going to be applied in the establishment, for which the planning license is requested, is absent and It is not published in the Official Gazette. This plan is the one that should establish the permitted uses in the business at Calle José Calvo 10, as well as the urban protection figures.
In this way, in the processing of the license a certain zonal norm is applied. unjustifiably and without regulatory supportindicates the demand. If the management plan is not published in the bulletin, it is non-existent and ineffective in terms of its legal effects, as stated in the text presented in court.
Another of the anomalies that appears in the complaint is that in the file processed by the entity European Quality Assurance Plans appear without the signature of any collegiate professional.
fire hazard
The lawsuit also highlights the flagrant breach of the fire ordinance of the Madrid City Council. Although it is of 21 kitchens, with 120 gas points and 2,800 electricity outletsin the file there is no reference to the municipal fire prevention ordinance or any maintenance contract for the fire protection installations.
In fact, to date there have been two fires in one of the industrial kitchens, in which the firefighters and the Municipal Police have had to intervene, the last of them during the early hours of Saturday to Sunday, June 12, 2022.
It is unjustifiably rash that a 900-square-meter high-risk industrial activity has been allowed to be set up on the ground floor and basement of a residential building, and which, to this day, continues to operate ignoring the prohibition. seriously endangering the safety of workers and residentsthe lawsuit states.
The complaint also states that numerous documents were missing throughout the process, something that has not been subsequently corrected either. For example, the file does not contain the final certificate of works subscribed by the facultative management, endorsed by the corresponding professional association or the civil liability insurance certificate or any visit or inspection by the municipal services or an environmental impact study.
Javier Flores, the lawyer in charge of the process, insists that the most serious thing is that no public official has intervened in the file and missing legal reports that are mandatory. It is a clear case of defunctioning of the public function that is not covered by any norm, concludes the lawyer.
protest rally tomorrow
The Platform for People Affected by Ghost Kitchens in Arganzuela will gather tomorrow against the permission of the Madrid City Council with ghost kitchens. The protest will be at 5:30 p.m. in front of the Cuyna kitchens on Paseo de Melanclicos, 5 and the Vicio hamburger, a business behind which is Aleix Puig, winner of MasterChef 7, who has installed himself in the industrial kitchens of Paseo Imperial 8, after being expelled from the facilities located at Alejandro Ferrant 8, next to the Miguel de Unamuno school. Justice knocked down this business in the absence of environmental and legal studies.
The platform demands the closure of all the kitchens until the judicial processes are concluded and the modification of the General Urban Planning Plan of Madrid, which regulates this activity, is approved. The residents lament the City Council’s lack of sensitivity to the depredation of these businesses, which do not create wealth for Madrid, as the City Council defends, but rather destroy coexistence and cause sources of contamination.
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