Collboni's advisors for La Rambla propose converting disused hotels into social housing

BarcelonaIn search of the formula for Barcelona to reclaim La Rambla, the mayor, Jaume Collboni, launched an advisory council at the end of 2024 to rethink the promenade. A team led by the businessman, designer, and jeweler Joan Oliveras, which for a year and a half has tried to find a solution that would bring Barcelonians back to one of their most emblematic streets. The result is a document that was presented to the public this Tuesday and which, among other things, proposes using culture as the lever to transform La Rambla and the possibility of converting empty buildings or disused hotels into social housing so that residents gain weight in the city center.

The recovery of residents and daily life on La Rambla is one of the axes of the proposal that the advisory council has sent to Collboni this Tuesday. And given the difficulty of creating new housing in a neighborhood without free plots, the team led by Oliveras proposes to follow the example of cities like Amsterdam and "transform old hotels and empty buildings into social housing." A measure that would be part of a specific housing plan for La Rambla and that should be complemented, for example, by a determined effort to crack down on illegal tourist apartments and expand the public housing stock through the purchase and renovation of apartments in the area by institutions.

"Without residents, La Rambla is a stage set; with affordable housing, useful commerce, and orderly public space, it can become the laboratory of Barcelona's new urban policy," says the document, which points out that to make the promenade habitable, public services and facilities in the area must also be enhanced. Along these lines, it advocates for the opening of nursery schools and primary care centers (CAP), and defends the key role that the reform of La Boqueria market must play in the commercial transformation of the area and the commitment to ensure that fresh produce predominates over products aimed at tourism.

In statements to journalists, Oliveras remarked that to recover residents it is not enough to "fill apartments". "We have to make La Rambla habitable, and at the moment it has difficulties being so", he admitted. In this sense, he explained that his document wants to be a starting point that helps generate citizen awareness about the fact that the city's central promenade "is recoverable". The commissioner for Ciutat Vella of the City Council, Ivan Pera, stressed that it is only a working document and pointed out that the proposals it includes must be studied, "concretized" and checked for what "political and social consensus" they generate.

Culture and commerce

The advisory council also argues that culture must be the backbone of the future Rambla. In this regard, it advocates for greater coordination between the cultural institutions present on the promenade, as well as for facilitating the presence of entities in premises on the avenue through bonuses and the promotion of small-scale events to activate public space. To help change the commercial landscape of the Rambla, it also proposes the purchase of empty premises or the creation of a public-private promoter entity to support rentals, establishments, and operations.