The PIO (Insular Management Plan) of Gran Canaria has opened the door for companies to apply to create luxury campsites on the island.
Suggested sites should be in the countryside and away from tourist resorts and developed areas, respect the enviornment, announced Iñes Miranda, the counsilor for Territorial Policy of the Cabildo.
The POI will accept applications for both fixed accommodation (such as wooden huts) and temporary (tents) though they would give priority to more luxurious accommodations known as "glamping" as long as they can be created to be temporary structures without foundations nor altering the surroundings should they be removed.
These buildings must be self-sufficient and be equipped with water and energy, as well as a waste treatment and disposal system without the need for connection to an external service network, so they will not require sanitation or lighting infrastructure. To avoid altering the landscape the structures must be free of fences, curbs or lines that delimit them.
These innovative camping areas, which will have a capacity of 25 places per hectare, must also have pedestrian accesses that facilitate the transit of visitors and avoid urban areas and their areas of foreseeable expansion, in addition to establishing a minimum distance of 200 Meters from the tourist areas.
It will not be possible to develop a luxury camping area in natural areas of special protection or in locations where there are threatened flora or fauna, unique geological or geomorphological formations, sites or areas of special patrimonial, ethnographic, historical or architectural interest.
The plan also limits camps in areas close to urban centers with the aim of preventing them from becoming, in time, permanent enclaves more similar to fixed nuclei than to temporary accommodation centers.
Likewise, the camping areas must respect the distance of 100 meters from the maritime land line and in them it will be prohibited to fire and cut down or disturb the fauna of the place, as well as to pour pollutants, to use generators and to leave garbage in the environment.
