Barcelona reactivates the green boulevard of Vallcarca twenty years later
The City Council has initiated proceedings to expropriate four properties on Bolívar Street that will be demolished.
BarcelonaMore than 20 years later, Barcelona is resuming the Vallcarca urban plan approved by Joan Clos's City Council in 2002. The municipal government announced this Thursday the initiation of the expropriation process for four properties fronting onto Avinguda Vallcarca and Carrer Bolívar, which will have to be demolished in order to continue. To carry out these expropriations, the council has approved a financial allocation of 7.6 million euros.
More than 14 years have passed since the last demolition work was carried out within the framework of this plan. At that time, the demolition included the Casita Blanca, the historic furnished of Avinguda Vallcarca, next to Plaça Lesseps, which the City Council demolished in 2011. Since then, a vacant lot with four benches is the only sign that a green promenade was planned there more than 20 years ago. "We want to get Vallcarca out of the provisional situation it has been in for too long," said the first deputy mayor, Laia Bonet.
Bonet, who is also a councilor for Gràcia, explained that all owners of the fifteen affected homes will be entitled to compensation and relocation to a building owned by the Barcelona Municipal Institute for Housing and Renovation (IMHAB) on the same Avinguda Vallcarca. Tenants with a contract prior to 2002, when the planning was approved, will also be compensated and relocated. Tenants with subsequent contracts are also entitled to compensation but not rehousing. The same applies to affected commercial premises.
The municipal government's goal is to complete the expropriations and debris removal process during this term, so that the works can be put out to tender and carried out in the next. Demolishing these buildings will also allow for the completion of a pending infrastructure project that the City Council considers key: the construction of a stormwater tank under this stretch of the green boulevard. The municipal government also wants to complete the project before 2027 by defining the final project so that the works can be carried out in the next term.
The resumption of the Vallcarca green boulevard project, however, is not complete. The 2002 planning project envisaged that this new promenade would extend from Plaza Lesseps to Casa Comas in Argemir. However, for the moment, the council has not taken any steps to continue with the expropriation of the buildings from Agramunt Street to this modernist building. "Coming from two decades of inaction in Vallcarca, the last thing we want is to generate unrealistic expectations," Bonet explained.
The green promenade project is only part of the planned change in Vallcarca. These days, the City Council has also begun the process of completing the transformation of the upper part of the space. To this end, last Tuesday the council made the first step to clear the shanty town under the Vallcarca viaduct and three municipally owned properties where people live in substandard housing.
A sensitive area
The effort to unblock Vallcarca's planning after two decades is particularly sensitive for the municipal government. Bonet admitted this Thursday that the passage of time has caused the situation to become entrenched and that the intervention is "complex and delicate." This is not only due to the shanty towns, but also due to the presence of occupied properties, some of which are on the stretch of green Rambla that the City Council prefers not to address for now.
In response to the opposition expressed by some residents to the project, the City Council emphasizes that the planning will have allowed for the addition of 522 homes in the neighborhood, 40% of which are social housing. Some of these are already built and occupied, while others will begin receiving residents in the coming weeks. In the case of the upper areas—those closest to the shanty town—two are already under construction and are expected to be ready by 2026, while the IMHAB hopes to begin work on the other two in 2027.
The plan also includes greenery improvements, with the addition of a central park. This will be an immediate first step with the relocation of the current basketball court from where it is now to the section above the viaduct. Furthermore, new service channels will be installed in the streets of Virgen del Coll, Tomillo, Medes, Cambrils, Argentera, and Calendau to serve all of these homes.
