“Every day was done, but not what had to be done,” is how Miguel Bonet, former owner of El Barco, assumes the lack of maintenance in the building declared in danger of imminent collapse this week that led to the eviction of 38 families in Esplugues de Llobregat. He speaks to La Vanguardia and explains his motives: “This story is very long,” he warns.
The old building was built during the 40s of the last century. But its situation changed through the General Metropolitan Plan (PGM) of 1976, the planning modified a thousand times and created during the last blows of the Franco regime that still governs the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona urbanistically. “When it was built, it was a developable area. But it became a green zone. A change was made with the Finestrelles area, which was more expensive,” recalls the former owner of the property.
The years went by and in El Barco, which is a witness to the social transformation of Esplugues as it saw different generations of immigrants who came to Catalonia in search of a better life pass through there, rents continued to be charged. But its future was planned: to succumb to the picket and become a green area.
Bonet acknowledges that they did not invest in maintenance “as they had to do” because they knew that “they had to expropriate it and throw it to the ground.” And so the years passed. “The building is not about to fall,” says the former owner of El Barco.
Bonet recalls that around 2004 the City Council “came looking for me” and reached an “unofficial, unsigned agreement,” but that the subsequent great economic crisis prevented it. However, the time came when he decided to “claim a claim so as not to be left without a penny.” And so, already in 2018, the courts ruled in favor of Bonet.
“I am very aware of the value of this expropriation: 3.6 million euros. In addition to interest that has not yet been paid. And the sentence said that that had to be converted into a green area,” says the first deputy mayor of the Esplugues City Council, Eduard Sanz. “In fact, at the beginning it was the Generalitat who had to pay, but in the end it was decided that it would be the City Council,” he adds. This is also a story of judicial resources.
The first deputy mayor explains that although the ruling is previous, the City Council has been the owner of El Barco for a year because that is when “the principal is finished being paid, interest aside.” But in any case, the City Council knew for years before that they would end up taking on this hot potato and that the neighbors would not be able to continue there. Why weren’t housing alternatives prepared before? “It’s what we were doing,” Sanz responds. “Work started on it a couple of years ago. But everything has been rushed,” he acknowledges.
One of the ideas is that the neighbors would spend “a year and a half, two or three” there while they found other places to live in new urban developments with public housing such as the Montesa neighborhood. “He hasn’t given time,” says the first deputy mayor.
But it arrived this Monday. It was then that for the first time a technical report, carried out by Syntesis Architecture, decreed that The Ship is “in a situation of threat of ruin” and that “it does not meet sufficient safety conditions to be inhabited, representing a certain risk for people and property. , so it must be considered in a situation of imminent ruin.” And the nightmare that the families have experienced in recent days began.
