Collboni to Foment businessmen: "I do not resign myself that Barcelonians do not live in the Eixample"

BarcelonaNot even five minutes had passed since the start of the event of the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, at Foment del Treball, when it became evident that one of the issues the business community wanted to address was the regulation of the housing market. The president of the employers' association, Josep Sánchez Llibre, took advantage of the welcome to the mayor to reproach him for the non-modification of the 30% protected housing reserve. Sánchez Llibre lamented that today in Barcelona "there are no cranes on the horizon", and warned Collboni that "it will be a negative point for your term" if he ends it without reopening this file.

Collboni soon took up the gauntlet, and although he did not refer to the 30% protected housing reserve, he did defend his government's commitment to regulating the housing market. "Doing nothing, letting the market work solely through supply, does not solve the problem," he argued, and explained that he had heard PP mayors say that those who cannot live in the city center will have to live outside. "I will not resign myself to the fact that Barcelona families can no longer live in the center or in the Eixample," he assured, and advocated for measures such as the application of the rent cap or the extinction of tourist apartment licenses in 2028.

The mayor also specified that this regulation is not incompatible with promoting the construction of new buildings. "I am not saying that we should not build more or stimulate supply," he stressed, and explained that the objective of all regulations to intervene in housing "is to rebalance the market". "The day this happens, regulations will no longer be needed. But, in the meantime, the blow is stopped with regulations," he defended. Collboni also denied that, as Sánchez Llibre had said, there are "no cranes on the horizon" in the Catalan capital, and referred to the new neighborhoods that are to be built in Marina del Prat Vermell, Sagrera, or Poble-sec.

"Barcelona is a city that once again has growth projects, with spaces to build protected and free housing," said Collboni, puffing out his chest, who, as he has been doing since the beginning of his term, has assured that the transformation that the Catalan capital will undergo in the next decade is comparable to those driven by the 1992 Olympic Games or the commitment to the 2004 Forum. The mayor, moreover, opined that the geopolitical context plays in Barcelona's favor because "it emerges as a safe space with political stability," two conditions, he said, necessary to be able to consider "the city in the medium-long term".

"The metro should reach Mataró"

During the dialogue with the mayor, there was also time to talk about mobility, another of the issues that Sánchez Llibre had requested to be resolved before the end of his term. Collboni explained that the launch of the future La Sagrera station, combined with the renovation of the Sants station, should represent a "very important leap in scale", and he also emphasized interurban bus mobility. "We will have to evolve in the coming years," he said.

But the real mobility bet that Collboni has made is the expansion of the metro network. "The tunnel boring machine should always be working," he said, and explained that in the first meeting he had with the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, he already conveyed that this was his great long-term demand. "The metro should reach Mataró, and Castelldefels. It is the way to create a true metropolis," he concluded.