**3. Santa Cruz: Introducing the Case Study**

This paper deals with the megaproject "Santa Cruz Verde 2030", which aims to transform an inner-city oil refinery (Figure 2) into a new urban neighborhood. Santa Cruz is the capital of Tenerife and co-capital of the Canary Islands, one of the 17 Spanish autonomous communities. With its 200,000 inhabitants, the city forms part of the metropolitan area of the island, where about 400,000 inhabitants live [40].

**Figure 2.** The oil refinery "Tenerife" in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Own photographs.

Founded in 1930, the industrial plant "Tenerife" was Spain's first oil refinery. It became a fundamental pillar in Santa Cruz's economy, but it was also an important sponsor of culture, education and housing programs in the city [41]. The refinery owned by CEPSA diversified the archipelago's economic structure, which is increasingly dominated by tourism. Considering the gross value added, the share of the industrial production dropped from 10.9% to 5.6% between 2000 and 2018 on the Canary Islands [42].

Due to the strong population growth (62,000 in 1930 to 223,000 in 2010), the urban setting of the refinery changed completely [40]. While it was originally located on the outskirts of Santa Cruz, it was soon surrounded by several neighborhoods (see Figure 1). This is linked to the scarcity of space in Santa Cruz, an insular city limited by the Atlantic Ocean in the south and the Anaga Mountains in the north. The pressure on the housing market has become highly visible in 2018, when Santa Cruz showed the highest increases in housing prices in Spain, although its population slightly decreased in the last ten years [43,44]. As a result, there are considerable economic interests that aim to urbanize

the refinery's area. During the last decade, increasing pressure has been put on the refinery. The argument that is put forward is based on environmental and safety issues, as the industry is on the list of the 200 most contaminating industries in the European Union [45]. Finally, in June 2018, CEPSA and the town hall announced the dismantling of the oil refinery and presented "Santa Cruz Verde 2030" (see Figure 3) [46]. Its concept entails 40% green spaces, but also 20% for residential and 10% for touristic uses.


**Figure 3.** The history of the oil refinery "Tenerife" in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and current politics. Own elaboration based on Arencibia de Torres [41], Gobierno de Canarias [47] and Santa Cruz de Tenerife Ayuntamiento [4].

> We chose the case of Santa Cruz Verde 2030 for two reasons. Firstly, our analysis will contribute to the still ongoing planning process. As the project has just begun, the starting point of our investigation lies in the public–private agreement, announced in summer 2018 [4]. However, the actual importance of this document can be questioned due to various reasons. The document is not binding, as it is not implemented in formal planning instruments. Moreover, a considerable number of technical questions remain, such as juridical problems concerning the land classification and upcoming claims of formerly expropriated landowners [48]. From the administrative perspective, the local government of the municipality changed two times since the announcement of the megaproject (see Figure 3). This has not only led to a time delay in the planning processes but has also left the current state of the project rather unclear. Consequently, the public–private agreement is currently the only existing and most detailed document of how the project initiators imagine the production process of the megaproject to take place. By understanding this process, we can contribute to increasing its transparency. This is also relevant if we consider the polarized urban setting in Santa Cruz [49].

> Secondly, Santa Cruz is the only large city worldwide with this type of industry in a central district [50]. However, Santa Cruz represents a considerable number of cities where deindustrialization goes hand in hand with touristification [51,52] and gentrification [53], most notably on the city's waterfront [54]. This relationship between the city and water has been reshaped by several large-scale projects in recent years. Since the 1990s, a general conversion can be observed, shifting the port's character from industrial to recreative

functions. The areas nearest to the city center (for example, Plaza de España) have been of particular interest in this reconversion and have been renewed with projects from the star architects Herzog and De Meuron [55] (p. 917). Apart from that, an adjacent quarter south of the center, the so-called "Cabo-Llanos Plan", transformed large parts of the city into an affluent area and displaced an entire neighborhood [56]. This strategic shift of the port's function was also possible due to the megaproject "Puerto de Granadilla". This new port constructed in the south of Tenerife is supposed to relocate industrial activities from Santa Cruz to the south and make space for further commodification and privatization at the waterfront of the island's capital [57]. Hence, we argue that our analysis of the chosen case study enriches the discussion about megaprojects and governance both in academia and the city. This is the case as we refer to the existing research gap in the stakeholders' perspective (see Section 4). It is of particular interest how the new megaproject Santa Cruz Verde 2030 on the city's last central brownfield site is developed—and whether or not it follows the trajectories of an exclusionary urbanism that is found in Santa Cruz.
