*6.2. Management of or for Stakeholders?*

Secondly, with regard to planning, neoliberal practices have been applied. Megaprojects are seen as a means to build the city and to avoid existing planning mechanisms. Deconstructing these projects reveals non-transparent planning practices, as has been illustrated by Lehrer and Laidley [1] (p. 795). Rather than applying a participative understanding of planning, it is the interest of selected middle and upper classes that dominates megaprojects' concepts [20] (p. 547). This is one of the main doubts that stakeholders pointed out about Santa Cruz Verde 2030, namely, the fact that the private interests of the landowner (CEPSA) are put first. Sustainability is often used to greenwash these aspects and justify the legitimation of the project [3] (p. 764). In the case of Santa Cruz Verde 2030, it is difficult to find stakeholders who would seriously oppose the idea of dedicating more than 40% of the area to green spaces. However, this does not imply that the other 60% does not have to be discussed, and this is exactly what has not taken place in the public discourse.

The highly untransparent planning process stands in complete contradiction to what has been said by project initiators, who promised "civic participation in every phase of the project" [4] (p. 6). The mismanagement of information, which is regarded as intended by the secondary stakeholders, leads to negative reactions. While some of the stakeholders are just very skeptical about the feasibility of the project, others are disappointed because of the expectations it raises. Santa Cruz Verde 2030 is presented in a way that does not encourage public discussions but puts a focus on image-related aspects. This is seen as a proof for the fact that the project's initiators are more concerned about selling the concept as a success, rather than putting emphasis on contents or participation. It is this culture of not integrating secondary stakeholders that is seen by other scholars [8,98,99].

The planning approach during this first two years since Santa Cruz Verde 2030 has been announced is a "management of stakeholders" [100] (p. 3), which is characterized as manipulative and puts the economic perspective first. Instead, a "management for stakeholders" [100] (p. 3) regards secondary actors as crucial partners whose integration might increase complexity, but also leads to a more sustainable output. Santa Cruz Verde 2030 represents the first approach with a unidirectional flow of information that aims to convince local stakeholders rather than offering concrete opportunities to participate. Although Di Maddaloni and Davis [8] (p. 1538) pointed out that there is still no study that proves how the "management for stakeholders" approach is beneficial to megaproject performance, our study shows that not integrating these secondary stakeholders leaves all of them disaffected. This increases the gap between primary and secondary stakeholders—a matrix where protests against the megaproject are likely to grow. Some of the stakeholders have already started to attack the project. The political opposition has put forward a court case on the public–private agreement in December 2018 [83]. Apart from that, the local association for monument preservation has started an initiative to prevent some of the industrial structures from being demolished [76] (l.18). They sent an application to Tenerife's government and therefore might put terms on the megaproject, without even being integrated by the primary stakeholders. Both examples show how not letting these stakeholders participate might lead to time delays in the planning processes and cost overruns, even if we just take an entrepreneurial point of view [101] (p. 1).

However, the secondary stakeholders feel that Santa Cruz Verde 2030 was used as a political instrument right before the municipal election in May 2019 by Coalición Canaria and Partido Popular. This seems to be a typical habit in the context of megaprojects [102] (p. 251), but, at the same time, megaprojects play a decisive role "in the erosion of democracy" [103] (p. 68). The mechanisms used to implement megaprojects into urbanism indicate an authoritative form of making decisions, as the case of Valencia shows [103] (p. 80). This is reproduced in many cases worldwide and represents the so-called post-democratic way of governing [104]. According to Tarazona Vento [103] (p. 71), this leads to a "depoliticization" of the project because it disappoints the other stakeholders [74] (l.6) and prevents them from participating [79] (l.56).

Our study reveals various deficits from different stakeholders' points of view. More research has to be conducted to understand the project initiators' standpoint, although finding an access to them is difficult due to the high political relevance of the topic. However, this will contribute to a deeper understanding of the wider urban process. What research on megaprojects can do is broaden methods and approaches on how to integrate stakeholders

and how to manage a truly reciprocal communication. The first steps have already been carried out, but it has been shown that there is still a "limited knowledge about the broader involvement of secondary actors" [8] (p. 1552).

This analysis indicates that integrating secondary stakeholders offers the opportunity to benefit from a large pool of knowledge, as the interviewees actively propose ideas to improve the planning process. This entails the request to enable the integration of stakeholders from different backgrounds [76] (l.24). Moreover, an international planning competition is suggested to increase the quality of the project's output [74] (l.29). Apart from that, induced gentrification processes as they have occurred in Cabo-Llanos are seen as a major threat in neighboring quarters of the new megaproject and should be tackled ex ante [79] (l.120).

Our research took place in a pre-COVID-19 setting. This does not mean that the global pandemic will not affect the megaproject, its planning process or the perception of it. On the contrary, in the light of COVID-19, the integration of stakeholders is more important than ever before. Recent studies indicate that the consequences of the pandemic are disruptive and will change the urban system in many ways [105–107]. Santa Cruz Verde 2030 should integrate the lessons learnt during 2020, for example, how to make the urbanism more resilient [108]. This is relevant because there is not only a relationship between the COVID-19 susceptibility and socioeconomic characteristics on the neighborhood scale [109,110]. The pandemic is also expected to increase urban inequalities [111,112]. This will add to the polarized setting of Santa Cruz's southwest, where, adjacent to the oil refinery, both high and low socioeconomic vulnerabilities have been found [49] (p. 78). As lower-income households are hit hardest by COVID-19, for example, due to unemployment [113] (p. 3), the vulnerability to be displaced by gentrification will rise too [114].

This perspective alone gives sufficient reasons to accompany the megaproject from a scientific point of view, particularly against the background of the existing trajectories of touristification and gentrification in Santa Cruz [53]. Letting local stakeholders participate is one feasible approach that will help to ensure a more sustainable output since it is the diversity of stakeholders that makes the city.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, M.H. and J.R.; methodology, M.H.; software, M.H.; formal analysis, M.H.; investigation, M.H.; resources, M.H. and J.R.; writing—original draft preparation, M.H.; writing—review and editing, M.H. and J.R.; visualization, M.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** All interviewees gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available because interviewees did not give their consent to publish the full interviews online.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

## **References**

