Neighborhood pressure postpones the eviction of a building in Gràcia where they want to build co-housing: "Sant Agustí is undeniable"

BarcelonaA victory for the residents in the first round of the battle for the apartment building at 14 Sant Agustí Street in Barcelona. The pressure from the crowd that gathered in front of the building this Wednesday prevented the foreign fund that owns it, New Amsterdam Developers (NAD), from evicting Txema Escorsa, the first resident of the building with a court order to leave. A partial victory – the eviction has been rescheduled for April 15 – which the Tenants' Union has used as further leverage to pressure the owners into negotiations.

"San Agustín is unyielding and will have no option but to negotiate," declared union spokesperson Enric Aragonès from the balcony of Escorsa once the eviction postponement had been confirmed. This brought to a close a demonstration that, similar to those held at Casa Orsola, had begun Tuesday night and lasted for more than fifteen hours. The building has become a symbol of the fight against the business model of shared housing., consisting of evicting the neighbors in order to divide the apartment into rooms and maximize their profit.

NAD, which is doing the same with the Mariposa blogThe company bought the property in December 2023 and has since refused to renew rental contracts, aiming to convert apartments into rooms as they became vacant. This practice—before the Catalan Parliament's law regulating seasonal rentals came into effect—allowed them to charge €2,700 per month for apartments that previously rented for €775. Currently, four of the eleven apartments in the Sant Agustí building are being used as shared accommodations. Two others are empty.

The situation remains unchanged after the eviction of Escorsa was halted on Wednesday. At 9:30 a.m., when the court officials were scheduled to arrive at 14 San Agustín Street, the street was packed. Hundreds of people filled the space between Córcega and Bonavista streets, making it impossible for the New Amsterdam Developers (NAD) fund to achieve its goal of evicting another apartment belonging to the blog. "No neighbors out of the neighborhood!" the crowd chanted.

The situation led to a long wait for the court officials, property representatives, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), and members of the City Council's mediation service (Sipho) at the corner of Roger de Llúria and Córcega streets, which had been blocked off by the Guardia Urbana (Barcelona's municipal police). After a back-and-forth in which NAD's representatives demanded the eviction proceed and the court officials rejected the request to avoid creating a public order problem, Escorsa finally went to the corner to sign the postponement of the eviction.

"We said there would be no eviction, and we've done it again," declared Enric Aragonès, spokesperson for the Tenants' Union, from the balcony. "They say they'll be back on April 15th, and so will we," he warned. "NAD didn't want the eviction to stop. If it has stopped, it's thanks to you," Txema Escorsa told the crowd, thanking them for their support.

Isla: "We are completely opposed"

As the next eviction attempt approaches on April 15, the landscape will have shifted in some ways. The mobilization has also triggered political shifts. President Salvador Illa himself tweeted his opposition to the eviction: "We are vehemently opposed to the eviction of the residents of Sant Agustí Street [...]. In no city in Catalonia will we allow abusive actions against the right of residents to live in their neighborhood," he wrote, adding that the government has "activated all legal mechanisms" against the property owners, who are illegal and do not comply with regulations, although he did not provide details.

From the balcony of Escorsa, spokesperson Enric Aragonès responded to Isla, saying that "it's not enough to just post last-minute tweets," and warned the Catalan government and the Barcelona City Council that it's also pointless to approve regulations "if we're then lenient with those who break them." He demanded that appropriate sanctions be imposed until "the speculators are driven out." In an interview on RAC1, the Minister of Territory, Housing, and Ecological Transition, Sílvia Paneque, had also explained that the Catalan government had conducted an inspection of the building on Sant Agustí Street just on Tuesday and detected a potential serious violation for exceeding the seasonal rental cap. According to the sanctions regime, this could result in a fine of at least €90,000 for each apartment.

This Tuesday, Barcelona City Council and the city's ombudsman, David Bondia, took steps to push the NAD fund into negotiations to avoid the eviction. "We consider it unacceptable to carry out the eviction and not return to dialogue," said the city's Housing Commissioner, Joan Ramon Riera, who recalled that last autumn he met with NAD representatives to ask them to maintain the residential use of the apartments. However, the owners refused to budge.

During this time, the city council has also imposed coercive fines of €20,000 on New Amsterdam Developers for failing to legalize construction work that the city's inspection services deemed irregular. These inspections, as explained the NOWThey arrived almost ten months after the neighbors reported the case in January 2024, and after even Barcelona's ombudsman, David Bondia, became involved.

No purchase option, for now

The ombudsman also made a move this Tuesday, announcing that he accepts the request from the Tenants' Union and the neighborhood to intervene in a mediation process regarding the building on Sant Agustí Street. However, it remains to be seen whether the owners will accept negotiations, which they have so far rejected. Bondia also mediated last year in the Casa Orsola case, which ended with the announcement that the City Council would purchase the building jointly with Hábitat3. This time, however, a similar outcome seems unlikely. Commissioner Joan Ramon Riera points out that for the City Council to exercise its right of first refusal—a priority right to acquire properties for sale in the city—the owners must want to sell the building. "To be able to do what we did with Casa Orsola, the owners need to express their willingness to sell. And that's not the case," he told reporters this Tuesday.