Carmena Approves Los Berrocales, the Largest Housing Development in the South of Madrid

24 January 2019 – El Confidencial

The Government Board chaired by Manuela Carmena will give an important boost to the urban development area of Los Berrocales on Thursday. It is the largest in the city and the first to receive the green light of the sites that comprise the project known as the Developments of the Southeast (Los Desarrollos del Sureste). The Town Hall of Madrid and the Compensation Board for the area have finally agreed the initial text for the urban planning agreement for the management of the buildable land, which will see the construction of 22,000 homes on the largest land bank in the south of the city. 50% of the homes, around 11,000, will be dedicated to social housing.

The General Plan for the city of Madrid obliges the parties involved to sign an urban planning agreement for the management of this area. The Administration and the urban planning entity are signing the commitments assumed by both for the development of the area. According to comments made to this newspaper, the agreement reflects the obligation of the Compensation Board to urbanise the land (which spans 8,305,812 m2 in total) over the course of six phases, during which the planned buildings will be constructed and the services implemented. The project will run until 2034. Moreover, the agreed texts establish the criteria to ensure the equitable distribution of profits and charges between all of the owners (…).

The total buildability amounts to 3.3 million m2, of which 2,247,121 m2 will be dedicated to residential use. 50% of that will be for private housing, 31% for price-controlled housing and 19% for social housing (that latter two percentages correspond to 11,000 homes). The rest will be dedicated to industrial, tertiary, office and commercial use.

In terms of facilities, more than 2 million m2 will be converted into green space, 1.9 million m2 will be used for public facilities and services, 1.7 million m2 for infrastructure and 228,830 m2 will be used for social integration homes.

The agreement reached with the Compensation Board represents a victory for the municipal Government and specifically, for the Sustainable Urban Development department, led by José Manuel Calvo, five months before the end of the current legislature (…).

Following the green light from the Governing Board, the text of the agreement must be submitted for public consultation – a comment period – and afterwards, it will go to the municipal plenary. From that moment, the urban planning entity will be able to start work on the execution of the project.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Paloma Esteban)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Carmena Invites Landlords To Sell Homes To The Town Hall

10 May 2016 – El Mundo

On Monday, the mayoress of Madrid, Manuela Carmena (pictured above) announced that she had been speaking with the representative from the Sustainable Urban Development team, José Manuel Calvo, to evaluate the possibility of arranging a competition to find people willing to sell their homes to the Town Hall “as cheaply as possible”, for the purpose of using them as rented social housing.

“There is a tremendous need for housing”, but the stock owned by the Municipal Housing Company (EMVS) is very limited, lamented the mayoress on her visit to Usera as part of the “One month, one district” program, where she was accompanied by the Councillor-President of Usera, Rommy Arce and a representative from Territorial Coordination, Nacho Murgui.

Carmena said that the EMVS has homes ready for emergencies, but that the Town Hall is facing “difficulties because many (of those homes) are being illegally occupied”. Solutions include approving specific modifications to the rules for accessing the EMVS’s homes and obtaining more homes for use as rental social housing.

The councillor added that all of the homes up for sale in the EMVS “have been rented out, but there are not enough properties”. Another measure that has been evaluated is the construction of homes on free plots of land, although that is a much slower process.

The mayoress offered that response after a resident of Usera realised her situation when she was evicted, after failing to pay her mortgage repayments on time on three occasions, and another resident who has also had to squat “out of necessity”.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake