The transformation of Consell de Cent into a green axis, one of the stellar actions of Mayor Ada Colau’s last term, complies with the law, according to Barcelona City Council, which the day before yesterday filed an appeal against the sentence that requires reverse the works already completed.
The municipal government alleges that Consell de Cent Street continues to fulfill the function granted to it by the General Metropolitan Plan (PGM), so it was not necessary to modify it. Not having done so to validate this urban planning action is the main argument used by the contentious-administrative court number 5 to strike down the project following a lawsuit from Barcelona Oberta.
Regarding the fact that after the works the functionality that the PGM attributes to the secondary and local road network, of which Consell de Cent is a part, is prevented from linking with the basic one, as stated in the ruling, the appeal argues, according to Municipal sources have explained to La Vanguardia that the judge “practically transcribes the plaintiff’s report and has not evaluated, or has not done so adequately, any of the City Council’s reports, both those in the administrative file and those that she provided in her response to the complaint.”
The ruling, the same sources recall, “is based on the idea that the connecting function of local roads in the basic network requires that the circulation of street motor vehicles have continuity throughout their route, when This continuity has nothing to do with the connecting function, since the PGM does not establish in its articles any reference to the characteristics that the road developments must have nor does it determine the percentage of land that must be allocated to each means of transportation. transport”.
The ruling states that the intersection of Consell de Cent and Enric Granados is replaced with the works by a square, and that it ceases to be a local road network and becomes a residential space, and that would also have required a modification of the PGM. At this point, the City Council alleges that the judge’s decision also “is limited to transcribing a part of the report provided by the plaintiff, which at no time makes a specific analysis of the works carried out nor does it take into account any of the municipal reports. which prove that the crossing maintains its functionality as a road because it continues to enable mobility.”
Another element that the municipal government contests from the ruling is the convenience of fragmenting the works. The City Council considers that “the ruling is in error because it accepts the report accompanied by the complaint and does not only value the Consell de Cent redevelopment project, which is the only object of the appeal, but also the four green axes”, also the of Girona, Rocafort and Comte Borrell”.
Regarding the fact that the project lacks a socioeconomic and environmental memory, the City Council responds that “the ruling does not mention which precept has been violated by not providing it.” In addition to remembering that “the various project reports cover all the aspects required by local legislation for ordinary works projects,” he remembers that “in the process prior to the approval of the redevelopment projects, several studies were carried out of mobility, economic activity, health and environmental quality that reinforced the validity of the implementation of the green axes and offered a detailed vision of the impacts on all these aspects.”
