The mayor Ada Colau, the councilor for Housing and Rehabilitation Lucía Martín, and some members from the neighborhood associations of La Verneda, La Pau and Via Trajana neighborhoods handed over the keys to the awardee families. These 44 homes delivered on this event are part of the 64 subsidized rental homes, transferred by CORP to the City Council in exchange for 15% of a property located in the Can Batlló-Magòria area.
The Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation (IMHAB) of the Barcelona City Council has held the ceremony to hand over the 44 keys of the officially protected homes awarded on a fixed-price rental basis, located on the former site of the Cobega factory . The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, the councilor for Housing and Rehabilitation, Lucía Martín, and members of the neighborhood associations of La Verneda, La Pau and Via Trajana, in the district of Sant Martí, have handed over the keys to the families awarded the new floors.
One of the new awarded neighbors, Natalia Rodríguez, has expressed her joy after receiving the keys to her new house: “I signed up in 2019 in the Registry of Housing Applicants and at the end of 2021 I received the letter saying that I had won the giveaway and I couldn’t believe it. Just today they have given us the keys and I am very excited even though it is owned by the City Council. It makes me feel like I am at home and I am very happy.”
For this affordable rental promotion, IMHAB has received 9,293 applications. The high number of applications for these homes highlights the need and relevance of the right to housing in the city. In this regard, the mayor Ada Colau has declared: “We know that there are many other people in Barcelona who cannot access a flat with market prices, and therefore, we must continue pushing for many more to be built”. And she continues: “Everyone needs to have a house, but it is also the necessary condition to have a life project. Without housing there are many other rights that cannot be developed. In fact, there are many people who leave the city because they can not afford housing prices. And this, for us right now, is a priority.”
Characteristics of the Cobega-Rambla Guipúzcoa project
It is a promotion of 64 homes assigned to the Barcelona City Council by Corpedificacions, S.L. (CORP) through a swap where the City Council transferred to the building company 15.5456% of its undivided property in the resulting estate 2 of the PEMU Reparceling Project of the PAU 1, Sector 1, of the MPGM to the area of Batlló-Magòria, valued at €10,000,000. The valuation of the assigned homes is determined at €9,100,000; the €900,000 difference was made effective by CORP to IMHAB at the time of formalizing the swap.
This estate intended for affordable rental has a total of 7 floors and 64 apartments, divided into: 10 homes per floor (except the 1st and 7th floors), a concierge, a space for community work (coworking) and a bicycle area (in the the 1st and 7th floors). The houses are divided into: 18 with one bedroom, 34 with two bedrooms and 12 with three bedrooms.
It is a building built with thermal insulation on the outside of the facade and consists of an individual aerothermal energy system, supported by photovoltaic energy. The optimization of the construction system and the efficiency of the energy system have made it possible to obtain homes with the highest energy certification and reductions in CO2 emissions associated with the air conditioning of the building and the use of domestic hot water.
These new houses are located at number 24 at José Garrido Gámez Street, near Rambla Guipúzcoa and Ca n’Oliva, which bears the name of the firefighter who passed away in 2010, while in the line of duty, saving a child from a accident at a transformer station in that same location.
Effort for the affordable Housing
Currently, the City Council has a housing public stock of nearly 11,000 homes throughout Barcelona, to which another 2,000 under construction houses will be added. “It is a very important boost in the city’s public housing stock,” has said Lucía Martín, Councilor for Housing and Rehabilitation. “From the City Council we are making a very important effort to increase the public rental stock, which had not been done in decades. This public housing construction effort allows us to say that we are accelerating, and we are flat out. A rythm that we did not have before and that we are starting to respond to the great demand for housing”, she concludes.