It was one newly built farm in the center of El Prat, a quiet and very well connected area, with the impact that this has on the price of housing: high. The building was erected by a local promoter who managed to sell a few flats, a few. Like so many others, the promoter went bankrupt and the unsold flats –the vast majority, 11 of 15– became the property of the bank.
The problems and serious for the four families who -at a bad time, they soon thought- bought a flat in the block they started -there have been here medicalized neighbors because of the situation and even threats of death– when the others 11 floors were occupied by acquaintances local drug gangs, that, yes, they do not usually operate in the center. It is a building on the street of doctor robert in which all the floors have a terrace, with which the people who were occupying the empty houses for cultivation and trafficking of marijuana They jumped from one terrace to another, passing without distinction through the four floors owned by the neighbors who inhabited them, for terror of these Living there became a real nightmare: being scared in your own house.
The conflict reached City Hall of El Prat through the community mediation service, when a desperate neighbor went to denounce the serious problems of coexistence in the community; but they quickly saw that the seriousness of the matter was beyond the mediation’s capacity for action. Here, to the classics schedule and noise problemsadded the extortion, death threats and drug trafficking. At that time, the case passed from the mediation area to the living placeand the municipal company Prat Spain started contacting the property to try expedite the eviction“accepting all contradictions that generates us”, is sincere Alba Bou, second deputy mayor of the Urban Planning and Housing Area, of In Prat In Comú.
Despite the logical discomfort of promoting a macro eviction -it was about 11 floors- from his political and ideological position, bou He explains that it was clear to him that it was something they had to do. “In some apartments there were figureheads. Today they put someone and then they changed him. First we tried to get the property to take care of the situation, but it was very difficult for us. With the large holders you never speak directly with the property, but with lawyers and spokesmen and everything costs much more, so we made the decision to buy the houses and lead the eviction“, continues the deputy mayor. They bought them in December of last year for 1.2 million. “It was a blind buythe apartments were occupied and we couldn’t go in to see them, but we took a risk,” adds the mayor.
And the purchase was the easy part. The neighbors did not care who the owner was, what they wanted to solve the situation. It wasn’t easy. It was about promoting the eviction of the11 floors at the same timeOtherwise, it would be useless. “If we vacate one flat one day and the other the following month, they would leave through one door and enter through another, we were clear about that,” he continues. Bou.
Subrogated process
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With that very clear idea, after the purchase they subrogated the Judicial process that the bank had initiated months before and they pulled strings in the courts to insist on the importance of a macro eviction. Finally arrived three months after purchase, the March 26th. “We had prepared a great device for what could happen, but it was all surprisingly well“, assures the mayor satisfied. Immediately after the eviction, they shielded all the floors to prevent them from being reoccupied.
Upon entering them there was no longer any trace of the plantations – they knew they were going to be evicted and they took everything before -, but there were Obvious traces of the installation for the cultivation of marijuana. “We will try to speed up the entire process as much as possible. It is a farm that will live for two or three months with a permanent surveillance service, we cannot risk it. Now it is about finishing the adaptation works of the houses as soon as possible to be able to award them to the families who are already in waiting list of the social rental bag, with the intention that it be all the farm inhabited this summer“, concludes the mayor.