Barcelona is undergoing a profound transformation in terms of housing that have brought the right to a decent and affordable home to the forefront, to the point of being an example for many other major international cities. This is made clear in the book ‘HABITATGE. Barcelona 2015-2023‘, promoted by the Barcelona City Council, which makes extensive and complete radiography of the strategies, mechanisms, and tools that have been promoted in recent years based on the opinion of more than forty authors.
The publication, presented in society on Wednesday, March 29 at the Biblioteca Gabriel García Márquez, in the Sant Martí district, featured a round table where visions and analyses of the state of housing in the city were contrasted. With the Crític journalist, Laura Aznar, as moderator, the City Council’s councilor for housing and renovation, Lucía Martín, emphasized the firm commitment made by the council from day one: “We have made very ambitious housing policies that are a paradigm shift from the past when they were aimed more at addressing the housing emergency and left other issues in the hands of the private initiative”.
Measures that know well another of the speakers at the event, was the doctor of architecture and housing councilor between 2015 and 2019, Josep Maria Montaner, who encouraged citizens to assume the conquest of the successes achieved. A good part of them collected from the implementation of the Plan for the Right to Housing 2016-2025, approved at the time with a broad consensus.
“Despite the possible changes that may occur in the consistory, I believe that this consolidated housing policy cannot be reversed, Barcelona society would not allow it. The success is the plan itself, which has been evolving,” says Montaner.
Quantifying the problem
The housing problem, a fine rain that encompasses many diverse issues, required new mechanisms to help detect its cracks. One of the clearest examples is the Barcelona Metropolitan Housing Observatory (O-HB).
“Until 2017 housing is not mediated as a tool for urban transformation. That’s why it was necessary to create a specific instrument,” notes the director of Barcelona Regional, Josep Bohigas, who defines Barcelona as an “urban and social laboratory where innovative proposals are promoted that even force the change of laws.”
Among other renovating initiatives is the housing superisland, explained by Bohigas in the book. “It is based on building a powerful idea of proximity, where housing is at the center and around it, we conquer spaces linked to facilities, basic services, work, people’s care… To articulate many sectors around housing so that the city becomes everyone’s home.
Policies against speculation
Housing superisland are some of the pilot processes that the city has developed, along with APROP housing, the ATRI system, industrialised housing, and new public tender formats, among others. And that will lead the way in the coming years.
“We have the challenge of continuing to work very focused, beyond the emergency, on all those people who live on rent and who suffer from global dynamics related to a real estate market that seeks maximum profit in the shortest possible time. And this is contrary to the right to housing. Our objective is to continue to push forward policies that fight against this permanent speculation”, concludes Martín.