The developers propose two different goals for poor and rich residents in the blocks affected by the 30%

BarcelonaIn the debate on how to address the amendment that requires reserve 30% of new public housing developments, the Association of Developers of Catalonia (APCE) has proposed that in these mixed buildings, where neighbors with high and low incomes must coexist, there should be two separate "doorways" to access the apartments. This segregation based on income would be the modernization of the service stairs that served so that the maids and workers of the well-off families did not mix when entering the building.

The first vice president of the APCE, Elena Massot, who is also CEO of the real estate group Vertix, has explained that the approach of the double community has nothing to do with avoiding "social mixing," but has come to say that everyone should feel comfortable, since they live together. But, in addition, she has insisted that separate stairs would help overcome some reluctance among buyers of expensive homes when sharing access with other residents with lower economic status. With this same argument, he has also referred to the "different capacities to meet community expenses" in a free and protected home, because they are two markets with very different audiences. "Do we want to have social housing or do we want this social housing to be at the same scale as the other?" he asked, and indicated that the only thing that drives the promoters is to do business and "sell" apartments.

However, Massot has indicated that, as the rule of 30% of protected housing reserve is written, the proposal of the two staircases is complicated. It was at this moment that he demanded from the Barcelona City Council "a little more flexibility and fit" and that, taking advantage of the pending modification, it should be taken into account that a double door is not easy to put into practice in the 600 square meters of buildable space and that it be extended to 2,400 square meters to "have more play".

Massot's proposal has been implemented for a decade now in cities such as New York or London, where it is known as poor door, that is to say, poor man's door. There, the defenders of door segregation justify that it has been an imaginative solution to comply with the will of the rich neighbors not to mix with the poor in common areas of the building. In addition, they also maintain that in this way a differentiated quality of construction and services can be maintained, adjusted to the pocket of each resident.