Tag: Manuela Carmena

Traffic Restrictions in ‘Madrid Central’ Drive up Parking Space Prices

16 March 2019 – El País

The Town Hall of Madrid, led by Manuela Carmena, introduced new traffic restrictions in the city centre (Madrid Central) in November last year on a provisional basis. As of Saturday 16 March, fines are now being levied on vehicles that enter the area illegally.

Only those vehicles owned by people who own or lease a parking space within the designated area may access the area, regardless of the environmental label assigned to their vehicles, if they are not residents. As such, parking spaces are in demand and so their prices have soared in the last 4 months.

In fact, prices have risen by between 20% and 30% following the imposition of the traffic restrictions. For a parking space that used to cost €20,000, vendors are now asking €25,000, and for a space costing €40,000 previously, vendors are now asking between €45,000 and €48,000, according to Daniel Lucía, founder of the company ParkingYa!, created twenty years ago and which sells more than 250 parking spaces per year.

According to Pisos.com, the average price of a parking space in the Centro district is now €52,100. In the Spanish capital in general, the average price amounts to €21,300. Moreover, even though the prices of parking spaces rose by between 10% and 20% across Spain in 2018, they are still 30% cheaper than in the years before the real estate bubble, when parking spaces in Centro and Salamanca were sold for €90,000 or €100,000.

These assets generated stable returns of 6.2% across Spain in 2018, compared with 5.5% in 2017, according to Idealista. In Madrid, the yield was 3.4%, although that figure varied by district. Location is key, as that typically determines the ease with which a space can be leased. Parking spaces in the city centre are always less profitable (generating less than 4%) than those on the outskirts but they are safer investments as are rarely unoccupied.

Original story: El País (by Sandra López Letón)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Carmena Frees Up Valdebebas and Will Sell 145,000m2 of Commercial Land

2 February 2019

A little more than three months before the municipal elections, the Madrid City Council has opted to help real estate boost the development of Valdebebas. The Governing Board of the Madrid City Council has agreed to dismiss all appeals filed against the final approval of the Valdebebas Economic Redevelopment Project.

The decision would, in practice, give a green light to the Valdebebas Compensation Board to sell plots of land for a large commercial centre with 145,794 buildable square meters and 36,448.50 buildable square meters of offices. In November 2017, almost a year and a half ago, the Board was forced to revise its 2013 urbanisation and economic rezoning project to get the Madrid City Council to once again grant building permits, which had been stopped by the municipality after it accepted the ruling by the Court of Justice of Madrid invalidating the economic rezoning project.

In October 2014, the Madrid City Council finally approved the urbanisation and rezoning project for Valdebebas that reduced the commercial area from 114,000 to 56,000 square meters, to include the construction of a private school, about 900 subsidised homes and 100 market-priced homes. The plots for the homes and the private school sold, but the Compensation Board had to cancel the sales due to the Court of Justice of Madrid’s decision. Those affected then were the school Joyfe, Pryconsa, Premier and Valdecam. In addition, all the urbanisation works for the commercial area will have to be demolished, which will entail a cost for the original owners of the land of 1.5 million euros.

The development of the commercial area has been frozen until today, after the judicial resolutions that annulled the Special Plan approved by the Cibeles Plenary on October 30, 2014 and today’s decision also presupposes the resumption the routine concession of construction licenses in Valdebebas to conclude its development.

Original Story: El Confidencial

Translation: Richard Turner

Carmena’s New Housing Plan: Rezoning in Exchange for Subsidised Housing

8 February 2019

The Madrid City Council is offering to rezone an industrial plot as land to residential in exchange for “30%, 50% or 70%” use as social housing.

Madrid is now following in Ada Colau’s footsteps, asking for investments in social housing from private developers. The Madrid City Council will offer to rezone an industrial site on the condition that part of it is converted into subsidised housing (VPO). José Manuel Calvo, the Councillor for Sustainable Urban Development, announced the decision in an interview with EjePrime. The initiative is a reflection of the Madrid City Council’s desire to invest in social housing.

Since the public stock of homes began falling in 2010, the government in Madrid has been unable to return to the levels seen before the crisis. When Manuela Carmena arrived at City Hall, the municipality had less than 6,000 public housing units. The mayor committed to adding another 4,000, half of which has been achieved four months before the end of her term.

The City Council of Madrid is now offering to work with private developers to increase the public stock of housing during the next government mandate. The idea is to rezone industrial lands so that developers can build homes, a percentage of which would have to be allocated to subsidised housing.

Carmena’s government requires any plots of land for subsidised housing to be independent

“I can tell developers that I will rezone the land as residential and then ask for 30%, 50% or 70% [for subsidised housing],” says Mr Calvo. While the exact figures have yet to be determined, the City Council believes that the developers’ investments must be “profitable” while the “municipality wants to receive the greatest possible number of homes.”

Carmena also insists that any plots used for subsidised homes be independent to avoid the Ada Colau’s situation in Barcelona. Ms Colau wants to oblige developers to set aside 30% for social housing buy her “proposal has run into legal difficulties because the homes are owned ‘proindiviso’,” meaning that the City Council jointly runs the residential associations with the developers.

In such cases, “as an administration, maybe you need the housing for needy families and the community can deny it,” says Calvo. “The proposal in Barcelona does not work,” he concludes.

The councillor is suggesting an alternative to Ada Colau’s proposal

Colau’s proposal was approved in a plenary session of the Barcelona City Council last September, with favourable votes by all political parties except the Ciudadanos (Citizens) who abstained, and the PP, which voted against. According to the municipality’s forecasts, the monthly rent for social housing of about 80 square meters should be 512 euros or €136,000 to buy. Taking into account that 1,114 apartments are built each year, the City is planning on 334 new homes per year.

The City Council’s proposal was not well received by developers, who met that same week in a commission to study the measure. The Catalan Association of Developers (APCE) questioned the legality of the proposal and warned that it could mean an end to new developments.

Original Story: EjePrime – Marta Casado Pla

Translation: Richard Turner

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

Operación Chamartín’s Secret Contract: Adif Sells 1.2 million m2 of Public Land at Half its Market Value

27 December 2018 – El Diario

For 25 years, the agreement has remained a secret. It is the document that supports one of the largest urban development projects in Madrid in one of the most sought-after areas of the capital, in the north of the city, to continue the Castellana, where the financial district and the most expensive homes and offices are located, which are being sold for more than €5,000/m2. The contract is going to be signed on Friday. On the one hand, Adif, the public company that forms part of the Ministry of Development and that manages the railway infrastructure, and on the other, Distrito Castellana Norte, a property developer that has changed its name repeatedly over the last quarter of a century.

In 1993, the Ministry of Development, chaired at the time by Josep Borrell, now the Foreign Minister, signed an agreement with the construction firm San José and BBVA to develop the railway land reserved for Chamartín station. That agreement, whose term has been extended several times, has been kept under lock and key until today. The property developer filed several lawsuits to prevent it from being published.

However, eldiario.es is now exclusively publishing the latest draft of the agreement, which reveals the economic conditions of the project, which is reportedly the largest urban development project in Europe: the sale of 1.278 million m2 for homes and offices. On Friday, the definitive agreement will be signed, confirm sources at Adif, which has been blessed by the municipal planning of Manuela Carmena’s government and which will see the disposal of public buildable land for a price of €769.5/m2 in that area to the north of Madrid, the expansion area of the financial district, one of the most expensive parts of the capital.

Sources in the real estate sector claim that the agreed value represents half the market price at which other plots in the same area have been sold recently. In January, the same vendor, Adif, put another plot up for sale, further north, in San Sebastián de los Reyes, outside of the capital, which was sold for €1,500/m2 to a real estate cooperative: €16.3 million for 1,500 m2.

The gigantic plot that Adif is going to sell to Distrito Castellana Norte (DCN), formed by the construction firm San José and BBVA, groups together 1.27 million m2 of land, according to the current contract. For that space, DCN is going to pay €984.2 million, which represents a price of less than €769.5/m2 excluding the financial interest corresponding to the payment over 20 years.

Hours after eldiario.es published the contents of the agreement, Adif issued a statement confirming that the cost that the private partners (…) will pay for the operation is above market prices. To reach this conclusion, the public company (…) is taking the price of the land and adding the interest that will be paid for 20 years (3% each year), the budget for the urbanisation of the plot and even the transfer of the land that the law obliges to the property developer: 100,000 m2 for public housing that Adif estimates at €67.4 million.

In September, the Government of Manuela Carmena approved the general plan to authorise the urban development of the so-called Operación Chamartín. In the accompanying financial report, the only official estimate that exists, the Town Hall of Madrid calculates a land value that is three times higher than the figure that Adif is going to receive. In that document, Manuela Carmena’s Government establishes that the sale of the whole reclassified area (which groups together twice as much land as mentioned above and which also involves other landowners) “would amount to €3.749 billion in total”. The price established in that financial report corresponds to 2.6 million m2 of that urban development. According to those accounts, the price per m2 equates to €1,407/m2, well below the €769/m2 that Adif is going to receive (…).

Original story: El Diario (by Fátima Caballero)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Ana Botella & 7 of Her Officials Sentenced to Pay €22.7M for the Sale of Flats to Vulture Funds

28 December 2018 – Voz Pópuli

The Court of Auditors has sentenced the former mayor of Madrid, Ana Botella (pictured below) and six high-ranking officials of her municipal Government to pay €22.5 million for the sale of 1,860 publicly owned flats to two companies owned by Blackstone, considered to be a vulture fund, for a price below that stipulated by the market in 2013. Another senior official, Fermín Osle, has been sentenced to pay more than €3 million for his role as the “accountant directly responsible” for the operation.

The ruling, revealed by Cadena Ser, concludes that the eight people now condemned “engaged in serious negligence” by not preventing “damage to public property” by selling the homes for €128.5 million when, according to the calculations of the Court of Auditors, Botella’s Executive could have received proceeds of more than €151 million.

The sentence is based on a claim filed a year ago by the current Government of the Spanish capital, led by Manuela Carmena, through the Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS). The ruling determines that the operations carried out by the Municipal Housing Company that reported into the Government “led to an unjustified impairment of public property”, which they estimate amounted to €23 million.

The other condemned officials are Enrique Núñez Guijarro, Diego Sanjuanbenito, Paz González García, Dolores Navarro, Pedro Corral and Concepción Dancausa, former delegate of the Government of Madrid.

They will appeal the sentence

The former mayor and her then municipal government team are going to appeal the sentence, according to sources, after hearing the content of the ruling, since “they do not agree with it”. They also noted that the Prosecutor of the court has already requested the dismissal of this claim “for not having any accounting responsibility”.

In the same way, they have indicated that the previous Governing Board of the Town Hall of Madrid “did not intervene directly or indirectly in the operation to sell the homes” to which the decision by the Court of Auditors refers. “Only, and in its capacity as the General Shareholders’ Meeting of the aforementioned company, did they ratify the feasibility plan that the EMVS’s Board of Directors had already approved”, they highlighted.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Carlos Frías)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Fotocasa: The Price of Parking Spaces Soars by 12% in Carmena’s Madrid Central

9 December 2018 – Voz Pópuli

It’s been a week since Madrid implemented the so-called ‘Madrid Central’ project, which restricts the access of the most polluting vehicles into the centre of the city. But some parties have been doing business for several months thanks to the regulatory changes approved by the mayor Manuela Carmena’s team in this regard.

The sales price of parking spaces has soared by 12%, according to data provided by the portal Fotocasa. The price of acquiring a spot in which to park a private vehicle increased from €26,960 to €30,152, on average, between September and October, in other words, a month before the introduction of the measure.

Although rental prices, by contrast, stayed the same at €177/month, so far this year, the district where Madrid Central is located is where prices have risen almost by the most, 9.7%, behind only San Blas, where they increased by 10.8%.

Madrid Central is looking “to ensure that our health is protected against the effects of air pollution, which in Madrid exceeds the protection levels established by European legislation. It will also contribute to the reduction of noise and to the fight against climate change, by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases”, explain sources at the Town Hall of Madrid.

Parking in the centre of Madrid

Parking in the centre of Madrid will be a real headache from now on. The most polluting cars, those that display B and C labels from the DGT, will be able to circulate in the centre to park in the various parking lots, but they may be fined if they cross into the Madrid Central perimeter without entering an underground parking lot, and even more so, if they decide to park in a SER zone (blue or green). In the event that there is no space in any of the parking lots, vehicles cannot be fined and the Town Hall will report that fact.

How can drivers know if there are any spaces available in the city centre’s parking lots? The Town Hall plans to install electronic screens at the 17 access points to Madrid Central, which will inform users about the availability of parking in real time. Nevertheless, those screens are not going to be installed until May next year, as they are currently at the tender contract phase.

The problem arises because the Town Hall has already announced that it will start to fine any drivers of private vehicles who break the new regulations from February onwards, three months before users will have information on the screens.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Carlos Frías)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Madrid’s Town Hall Definitively Approves the Mahou-Calderón Development

15 November 2018 – El Confidencial

The final piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. The Governing Board of the Town Hall of Madrid has definitively approved the urbanisation plans for the Mahou-Calderón project after the corresponding period of public consultation came to an end on Thursday. This means that the owners of the land can now start work. The plenary of the Town Hall will ratify the final project over the coming weeks, although the claims phase is not, in theory, expected to alter the plan initially approved in July: it involves a budget of €42.2 million, will see the transformation of 193,804 m2 of land in total and will be executed in three phases in just under three years. The first phase will involve the demolition of the stadium.

The demolition of the Atlético de Madrid’s temple, an operation that will cost €22.4 million, will be the first piece of work to be carried out, with the exception of the stand located above the M-30, which will remain in place to interfere as little as possible with the traffic on that road. Subsequently, the traffic from the motorway ring-road will be diverted so that the stand can be demolished. The first stage will also include the urbanisation of the roads between Paseo de los Pontones, Paseo Imperial and Paseo de los Melancólicos.

Once those first projects have been concluded, phase 2 will begin, which will see the reorganisation of Paseo de los Melancólicos and Calle Duque de Tovar, with a budget of €7.7 million. Finally, the third phase, with a final budget of more than €12 million, will include the creation of a new park by the river, which, in any case, will come after Calle-30 has been covered over, by the Town Hall. Specifically, the Town Hall has committed to providing €60 million to finance the work to cover over that road, a budget that is separate from the urbanisation project that has been approved today because it was agreed that it would be processed independently.

The Governing Board chaired by Manuela Carmena gave the final green light to this project today, which is going to be financed by the Compensation Board that comprises the landowners (Atlético and Mahou). The surface area of the space is broken down into two sections, one of which is dedicated to residential and tertiary use, and the other to roads, green areas and basic amenities.

The land dedicated to residential use occupies 33,339 m2 (with a buildability of 132,344 m2) of which 13,243 m2 will be for social housing properties, which represents more than 11% of the total. Meanwhile, tertiary use land will have a buildability of 14,705 m2. Finally, the land dedicated to social uses will span 13,893 m2 for public amenities. In addition, 73,099 m2 will be dedicated to green space and 73,469 m2 to roads .

In any case, this final procedure paves the way for the construction work to begin and for one of the major urban planning operations in the city to be unblocked. It has been in the hands of the Department for Sustainable Urban Development, led by José Manuel Calvo. As this newspaper published in the summer, the initial approval of the plan – which today received definitive approval – was a key step for the plans of Atlético de Madrid. The football club suspended the process to sell its urban planning rights in January, as it was waiting to be able to offer the three interested finalists – Solvia, Ibosa and Princeton – a series of guarantees, including the reparcelation and urbanisation project, amongst others.

With the sale of its urban planning rights, Atlético de Madrid is hoping to raise almost €200 million, an amount that it is hoping to use to repay the Mexican businessman Carlos Slim for the €160 million loan that he granted  to Enrique Cerezo’s club to finance the completion of the construction of the new stadium, the Wanda Metropolitano (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by Paloma Esteban)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Madrid Nuevo Norte will Generate €13.2bn of Business for the RE Sector

12 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Madrid Nuevo Norte represents good news for the Spanish real estate sector. The Town Hall led by Manuela Carmena expects the project, which received the green light at the end of September, to generate €13.2 billion of business for the real estate sector.

The urban development project, to the north of Chamartín train station, is going to house 10,485 new homes, as well as 1.5 million m2 of offices and another 103,119 m2 of commercial space. The acquisition of the plots will involve a total cost of €3.74 billion and the construction costs will exceed €2.78 billion.

The Town Hall of Madrid has confirmed that the tertiary assets will contribute the bulk of the income for the property developers that participate in the construction of Madrid Nuevo Norte. Together, the sales price of those properties will amount to €10.2 billion. In the case of the development of new homes, the business will amount to €2.98 billion, according to reports from Cinco Días.

The results of an economic study for the project show a range of returns of between 11.2% and 16.4%, although the Town Hall warns that the margin will depend heavily on factors such as the evolution of the real estate market and the acquisition price of the land. In terms of the latter, an orientative cost of €2,899.47/m2 is forecast for private housing located in the financial centre.

Following several adjustments, the total buildability of Madrid Nuevo Norte has decreased by 21%, down from 3.37 million m2 according to the initial plan to €2.66 million m2 under the current plan. In addition, the district has been divided into four areas: Chamartín station, the business centre, Fuencarral-San Roque-Tres Olivos and Fuencarral-Las Tablas. Each area will have its own construction timetable and urbanisation costs.

The project will have to be financed almost in its entirety by the landowners, who will disburse €1.2 billion on average. The Town Hall of Madrid is going to spend €307.89 million with the aim of covering the urbanisation costs, which will be added to €24.78 million from the Community of Madrid and €220.49 million from Adif, the concessionaire of the rights.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Metrovacesa Receives Green Light to Build Madrid’s ‘Medicine City’

3 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Metrovacesa has received the green light to start work on the construction of ‘medicine city’ in Madrid. The Town Hall, led by Manuela Carmena, and the property developer have reached a definitive agreement to start work on a large complex to be dedicated to tertiary use in the north of the Spanish capital.

Specifically, the building work will be carried out in the vicinity of the Ramón y Cajal Hospital. The industrial plot measuring almost 44,000 m2 and owned by Metrovacesa, will be used to build commercial facilities and accommodation, according to reports published by El Confidencial.

The new complex will serve the neighbourhood and users of the Ramón y Cajal Hospital. The agreement between the Town Hall and Metrovacesa also covers the protection of the milk group Clesa’s old factory, a property considered important due to its industrial architecture and in whose honour the operation has been named. That installation occupies more than 10,400 m2.

Of the remaining space, 22,900 m2 will be allocated to accommodation, including a hotel and rental apartments for the exclusive use of users of the hospital. Another 19,800 m2 will be dedicated to a student hall of residence, in particular, to accommodate students of the MIR and other doctors visiting the centre. Finally, 3,000 m2 of space has been reserved for commercial use.

The initiative began in 2014, when the real estate company asked for a licence to demolish the Clesa factory, with the idea of building a residential complex. Nevertheless, the Town Hall of Madrid did not approve that change in classification of the land from industrial to residential.

With the arrival of Manuela Carmena to the Town Hall of Madrid, negotiations began to redesign the project. In this way, the recovery of a historical building is promoted and the Ramón y Cajal Hospital will become an important health pillar, according to a statement issued by the Town Hall of Madrid.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake