The Chamber of Urban Property of Barcelona and Lleida requested on July 18 the stoppage, as a precautionary measure, of the semi-pedestrianization works of four streets of the Eixample, Consell de Cent, Rocafort, Borrell and Girona, whose start will begin in mid-August. They are the so-called new green axes or, in a very lax interpretation of the term, a kind of new ‘superilles’. In a very forceful car, the judge has dismissed the arguments that he drafted on behalf of that property chamberInterestingly, the former Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning of the Barcelona City Council Ramon Garcia-Bragado. One by one, the car disarms the catastrophic warnings of the complaint and therefore gives the green light to start work.
After the judicialization of politics, for years, a sign of the times in Spain, now comes to Barcelona a derivative of that strategy of attrition, the judicialization of urban planning, something unusual to say the least in a city that for decades has made the great Transformation works almost a vice. Foment del Treball took the reform of Via Laietana to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) last April and it failed in his attempt to stop the works. In mid-July, the former chief architect of the Barcelona City Council, Josep Anton Acebilllo, remember, father of the Glòries drum and the Fòrum urbanization, raised the illegality of the works on those four streets of the Eixample mentioned above with some arguments not very distant from those of García-Bragado, head of municipal urban planning under the mandate by Joan Clos. It is for all this that the order recently drafted by the court of administrative litigation 16 of Barcelona is a very interesting read.
The complaint from the property chamber argued that the projects underway are going to mean a radical change in the mobility of the city center because they will eliminate circulation on those streets (something that will not really happen) and will affect access to housing , jobs and shops. This point sums up, in fact, one of the main reasons for the debate on the city model. The complainants consider it unquestionable that the only mobility that deserves that name is that which is carried out by car or motorcycle.. None of these streets will no longer be passable, actually not even by private vehicle, but cars, it is true, will not be able to travel them in a straight line from end to end, as they are now. To access public and private car parks, for example, it will be necessary to access from the nearest corner, that is, with an L path.
Before the judge, the complaint maintains that the city council has committed a battery of urban infractions, but in his response the magistrate affirms that “it has not been proven that we are facing one of the cases of an act vitiated by nullity that justify ‘per se’ the adoption of the interested precautionary measure.
The other great argument of the property chamber to require the stoppage of works is an alleged irreversible nature of the works because of the economic cost that this would entail. The judge maintains on this issue that if it were necessary later to reverse the works, that economic loss would affect the administration itself, not the property chamber. “The Chamber of Urban Property of Barcelona and Lleida cannot pretend to set itself up as the defender of a hypothetical general interest based on hypothetical damages that, beyond the allegations, are not specified & rdquor ;. The order adds at this point that “the action of the administration pursues a public purpose such as the urban improvement of the area & rdquor ;.
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What the municipal government is proposing with the green axes is to add measures at the local level against the climate crisis without, in its opinion and based on known background, having a negative impact on the commercial life of the affected areas. Consell de Cent street, between Vilamarí and Paseo de Sant Joan, is the main axis of this project, among other reasons because it intersects with the other three greenways, as well as with the unique Enric Granados street. At each of these intersections, the works will illuminate new squares, especially green ones, which will give the place a certain ‘superilla’ air.
These are not the first street calming projects carried out in Barcelona. They are not even the first controversial. When Portal de l’Àngel and Carrer de Portaferrissa were pedestrianised, during Pasqual Maragall’s first term as mayor, shopkeepers fiercely opposed it with the thesis that the absence of cars would turn the place into a wasteland. As is known, the opposite happened. This type of conflict has been repeated practically every time the city council has promoted an identical or similar measure. The novelty, now, is the judicialization, which for the moment has turned out to be a sterile strategy.