The Barcelona City Council often repeats it: at the moment it is the administration with the highest rate of construction of public works. In the city, the consistory has 31 promotions under construction or about to start them, totaling 2,115 flats with expected completion between this year and 2024 in which it is estimated that they will be able to reside 4,500 people. The municipal investment associated with these projects is 300 million euros.
A sweet spot on a path that started more uphill: During the first term, the government of Ada Colau finished 834 flats that the vast majority had been projected during the previous mandate, with Xavier Trias as mayor. 566 apartments were also acquired and rehabilitated and another 323, which were empty, were used for rent.
At the end of Trias’ mandate, Barcelona had 7,538 public flats between its own and those assigned for rent; now the sum is 10,800
So, Colau’s team argued that it was unfeasible to go faster, but the mayor paid with the criticism received a promise made by Barcelona en Comú during the 2015 election campaign that was not fulfilled: that in the 2015-2019 mandate it would end with 8,000 more protected flats in the city: 4,000 built and 4,000 purchased. The opposition put on its boots with that breach and the Housing manager, in the first term and in this one, Javier Buronwho arrived after the happy promise was made, stressed that building public housing involves procedures that are not necessary in private housing: “In nine years there are three construction cycles for private housing and only two for public housing, due to the amount of legal requirements added in the second case & rdquor ;, counted in 2019.
permanent protection
With data from March 2022 the situation has changed a lot. The 31 developments in progress will house homes with some type of protection that will not be sold, to thus combat an evil from the past for which all administrations, without exception, were responsible. The house was acquired at a price below the market price and after a certain period the protection disappeared.
This benefited the private sector, on occasions when it no longer needed financial institutional support, because its situation had improved, but it prevented the creation of a large public housing stock, which in other cities and in other countries is more significant, which allows not only offering a flat to someone in a vulnerable situation but even influencing the general rental price. Barcelona is still a long way from reaching that point, but the park will have grown considerably over the years.
Rent, right of surface
Of the 2,115 homes under construction or about to start, 1,623, 77%, will be for rentor social (about five euros per square meter), or affordable (between seven and eight euros per square meter), which is the one that is at a midpoint between the social and the market (15 euros per square meter ).
301 homes, 14%, will be built under the surface right regime, a formula that consists of the new owner acquiring the right to reside in the home for 75 years. You cannot do business with it, or rent or sell it, although you can leave it to heirs if they register and live there, although they can only occupy it until they reach the age of 75 that they began to have with their parents. After this period, the town hall reverts to disposing of the house
2% of the total, 37 homes, will correspond to co-housing: the city council gives a farm or a plot of land for a cooperative to build. Members contribute a ticket and pay a monthly fee. Another 154 flats on the current list, 7%, make up the section affected by urban planning: they are for residents of areas affected by urban transformations. For example, in the case of the cheap houses of Bon Pastor, the ones that will be built to replace the old demolished blocks.
By neighborhoods
By zones, the 2,115 flats are distributed as follows: eight flats in Ciutat Vella; two promotions in the Eixample with 47 (Nova Esquerra del Eixample) and 238 flats (Fort Pienc); two in Sants-Montjuïc with a total of 180 flats (Marina del Prat Vermell); two in Gràcia with 14 dwellings (Vallcarca i els Penitents) and 97 (La Salut); one in Horta-Guinardó with 105 homes (La Clota); five developments in Nou Barris, one of which will have 29 apartments (Roquetes), two will have 78 (Torre Baró) and the other two will have 162 homes (Trinitat Nova); nine developments in Sant Andreu, five of them with 244 apartments (Bon Pastor), three with a total of 278 (Sant Andreu) and one with 139 (Trinitat Vella), and nine more in Sant Martí, of which four have a total of 217 homes (Besòs i el Maresme), two will have 60 (Parc i la Llacuna del Poblenou), another two will have 64 homes (La Verneda i la Pau) and, finally, there will be one with 155 homes (Provençals del Poblenou).
According to city hall data, through the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation (IMHAB), it manages 10,800 homes, figure that does not include those that are not finished. Of that total, 9,268 form the municipal public park: 8,397 are rented and 871, surface rights. Compared to 2015, the apartments purchased are 1,200 and those built and delivered, 1,000. Some 700 private ones are temporarily incorporated into the public network. The park plus the ceded homes, that is, the 10,800 cited, were 7,538 at the end of Trias’ term, so the increase since 2015 is more than 3,300 units.
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Lucia Martin and the Generalitat
The Councilor for Housing, Lucía Martín, recalled days ago, when announcing the start of work on a development in Glòries, the difference in the pace of construction of the town hall and the Generalitat: In 2021, the Municipal Institute of Housing tendered 60 million in works, INCASOL, from the regional administration, 23.4 million and IMPSOL, from the AMB, 24.1 million.