Can Zam: 45 years of neighborhood struggle for a greener Santa Coloma

One of the iconic images of the Santa Coloma neighborhood fight It is a cart pulled by a donkey and followed by dozens of neighbors entering the grounds of Can Zam in the historical 1976 demonstration. Claimed a great park and prevent more floors from being built there as well. 45 years later, Josep Pitarque, Carles Valls, Antoni Sancho, Miguel Ordóñez and Antonio Molina, members of the Platform for the Defense of the Sierra de Marina and Can Zam, they walk through those same lands to remember the victories achieved -something that never hurts- and review the many pending subjects. They are clear that they will not give up until Can Zam sea “The green and lush urban park that Santa Coloma needs & rdquor;A commitment that has moved them -and in what way- during the last decades. As mythical as the photographs of the 76 demonstration are the recordings of the 2002 camping trip to avoid, again, the construction of flats.

The appointment is at the crossroads between the Pallaresa avenue -where controversialists rise up defiantly Cubic buildings– and Víctor Hugo Street, an artery that crosses the integrity of the disputed space. The neighbors have not chosen the place at random. “This is where the park that we battle for begins, the park of 30 hectares& rdquor ;, they begin the route insisting on the substantive claim which is that the city council and AMB recognize the park as the whole pill -the 30 hectares already collected in the Pla Popular- and work from there space by space.

The first stop -and claim- of the walk is the Can Zam farmhouse. The last active one that remains in the entire city, which from the social movements ask the council to buy it to preserve it and open it to the neighborhood (today it is semi-hidden from the street behind a wall). “They have already booked one Budget item to do it, but we will see “, they sentence about it with a point of hope. The first step has been taken.

“In a great first fight, in the seventies, it was achieved that it was not built, but over the years, every time a facility was needed in the city, they put it here, and they filled the land,” continue the neighborhood activists when passing by the IES Puig Castellar, the first to be built in the city. “At first there was no problem in building equipment here. On many occasions they were highly sought after facilities, the problem was concentrating all of them here without having a single park project. it can be an equipped park, We do not ask that they remove the equipment that already exists, but it must be understood as such “, they point out.

One of the most worrying issues for the mobilized neighbors is the current great concert area, these days occupied by a circus tent. First famous space for hosting the macro concerts organized by Just miller or, currently, the Barcelona Rock Fest. “They sell us that it is to project the image of Santa Coloma to the world and it turns out that the festival is called Barcelona Rock Fest “, they ironically insist that their claim is not that cultural events are not scheduled in the park but rather their format.” Concerts can be held, but not in such a format bestial; program acts on a more human scale “, they sentence.

The municipal response

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Municipal sources indicate that “the vacant space” that served in its day to store the materials for the works of the L9 metro is the subject of a “minimum initial project “ built into the Local Pact for the social, economic and cultural reconstruction of Santa Coloma, signed by all the political forces of the consistory in the summer of 2020. “It is therefore not a definitive project, it is a project that aims to improve security and accessibility, as well as increasing green space. For this reason, more than 80 trees will be planted, there will be recreation areas and public lighting will be installed “, they point out from the government team, adding that” this is not the only project that will be launched in 2022 in the area to improve the biodiversity and ecological quality of the Can Zam park. “The same municipal voice also announced that next year the works of the Biodiversity Refuge of the Besòs River, which ends precisely at the height of Can Zam in its first phase.

The mayor’s office also insist that these actions respond to the participatory process in which more than 5,000 people expressed their opinion, a process highly questioned by the platform, who criticizes that what the city council sells as an open participatory process is nothing more than an “interested survey sent to certain population groups” and regrets that the council did not take into account the allegations presented last July by 23 entities of the municipality.