The five large neighborhood entities of the Eixampleorganized in a coordinator, have formally asked the consistory to requalify the pacified streets of the Superilla to “make it difficult to revert to the road system & rdquor ;. In other words, let them remain legally shielded so that an eventual change of government does not reopen them to traffic.
It’s all about the streets Consell de Cent, Rocafort, Borrell and Gironaalready under construction, as well as the surroundings of the Sant Antoni market remodeled at the beginning of the mandate. They ask that they stop having the status of an ordinary street and that a new legal figure be created to recognize their new pedestrian dynamics. “It would be good if they were consolidated with a specific urban qualification in the General Metropolità Plan (PGM), which is totally different from the current consideration of a basic road axis,” says the coordinator.
In fact, the current modification of the technological district 22@ is already debating the creation of a qualification of the hybrid land between the street and the green area, called “5/6@ of shared uses”. If it were applied in the Eixample, would be “5/6E” with the initial of the central district. “It is perfectly feasible & rdquor ;, says Jaume Artigues, president of the AVV Dreta del Eixample. “There has been a lot of belligerence against these green axes and there is a real danger that they will be reversed, as has been seen with the attempt to build the Industrial School to expand the Hospital Clínic & rdquor ;, he points out. If the pacified streets were requalified, he points out, reversing them would require a longer process –for example, going through a period of public exposure and allegations– that would give the dissenters a margin to organize.
Not a tree less
It is one of the most striking points in a long list of requests that the five entities (Fort Pienc, Sagrada Família, Sant Antoni, Esquerra de l’Eixample and Dreta de l’Eixample) handed over to the district councillor, Pau González (BComú), last September 16. They also starred in a debate open to the public on Monday the 19th at the headquarters of the AVV Dreta de l’Eixample. The leitmotiv of the proposals is the protection of all ‘green’ space in the Eixample, whether public or private, be they gardens or renaturalized roads. “We are experiencing a climate crisis, we cannot allow the loss of even a single tree & rdquor ;, emphasizes Artigues.
Ada Colau’s government picks up the enchanted glove, especially the ‘comuns’ as promoters who are from the Superilla. “Anything that involves consolidating the existing green in the city, as has already been done in Gràcia, seems to us to be a good proposal,” municipal spokesmen point out. However, they circumscribe the how and when to the debate on the future Urban Master Plan for Barcelona, called to replace the current aging plan, which is from 1976. The change is years late and is not imminent. “Changes in urban qualifications have to be studied and worked on in an orderly manner and with a global vision,” excuses the council, which plans to accelerate the PDU in the coming months.
The ‘illegal’ green
The Eixample is the most populous district of Barcelona, where a quarter of a million people live. The entities claim to fluff it up with many more green lungs and show that the orthodox route is practically exhausted: there are hardly any qualified m2 of green area left that are not already a park, a garden or a naturalized corner. For this reason, they ask to protect private gardens and that they cannot be built in the future.
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There are also no block interiors that are easy to convert into new public gardens, which has visibly slowed down this line of action. Moreover, the neighborhood coordinator complains that some of the daily oases that are taken for granted are in a fragile legal situation, because they actually occupy building land or roadways.
This is the case, for example, of the central island of Plaza Tetuan, of the gardens of Victòria Eugènia de la Gran Via –recently restored–, of the gardens inside the headquarters of the University of Barcelona or of the inner alleys of the Escola Industrial . All of them are unofficial green areas, because they do not have this classification in the plans. “They are flagrant contradictions, political coherence is also demonstrated by this & rdquor ;, regrets the coordinator.