Several experts have agreed this Friday in a debate organized by the Restarting Badalona association on the need to bet on a metropolitan perspective to face housing problems in Barcelona.
The debate, organized jointly with the Pla Estratègic Metropolità de Barcelona and Barcelona Global, was held this morning at the Hotel Gran Marina in Badalona (Barcelonès Nord), where the speakers analyzed the main challenges in terms of housing and construction of new developments in a meeting moderated by the journalist from ‘La Vanguardia’ Silvia Angulo.
The speakers have been the president of Habitat and former director of La Caixa, Banco Sabadell and Santander, Joan Maria Nin; the Barcelona City Council Housing Manager, Javier Buron; the director of the Incasòl, Maria Sisternas; and the president of the Association of Promoters and Builders of Catalonia, Xavier Vilajoana.
Nin has stressed that it is “common sense” to bet on this metropolitan perspective when faced with a problem that is large, compared to “niche practitioners who like the tiny a lot”, because they can better handle “the small town hall”, something That doesn’t resolve the underlying issue.
In addition, the former bank manager, who has assured that housing is “a diagnosed problem that is a true collective failure”, has stressed that it is very important that in order to resolve the issue, the importance of balancing supply and demand is taken into account .
The president of Habitat explained that if a “balance between supply and demand is achieved and you don’t stifle supply, this will structurally end up having an impact on prices.”
For his part, Buron has stated that “a metropolitan or regional scale is needed” since that “means mutualizing resources”, although he has not gone into the substance of the question of “why it does not happen”, something that he has stressed that it does not It is up to the debate to resolve.
On solutions for housing, he stressed that “all the offer per se does not solve the problem” and has ensured that the regulation of the rental price can be a way for prices to fall, although he has summoned to see how this planned measure works in the housing law, with autonomies that will limit them and others that will not.
Vilajoana stressed during her speech that “we have to think about the great Barcelona” in terms of housing, but “in minutes and not in kilometres”, an issue that also raises the need to invest in infrastructure.
The president of the association of promoters has exemplified the case of Luton, a municipality in the United Kingdom that has ensured that it represents the same for London as Girona does for Barcelona -both have an airport-, but that mentally people think they are in the capital British “because in 25 minutes you are in the center”.
On the other hand, the director of the Incasòl has assured that she is willing to “row in favor” of the Metropolitan Master Plan, of which she has highlighted that the technicians who have prepared it have done something “quite simple” such as collecting “where the big soil reserves and the opportunity to develop them”.
Sisternas has highlighted that this plan “is missing a leg of the budget, of public investment”, of which he has stated that “it does not mean that it is in deficit, it does not mean that we lose money and that Papa Estado finances everything for us”, but at the reverse.
During the closing ceremony, the acting mayor of Sant Adrià de Besòs (Barcelona), Filo Cañete, spoke, stressing that the metropolitan perspective should not be centralized in Barcelona, ​​but that there must be “compensations and balances” throughout the territory .
On the subject of housing, he has asked to “take a look beyond” and also address the perspective of housing from a social point of view, such as in cases of elderly people who live alone, people who suffer job insecurity or the difficulties of young people to access a property.
Also, the mayor-elect of Badalona, ​​Xavier Garcia Albiol, has intervened, who has stressed that it is important that there be “legal security” for those who rent their apartments, especially in the case of small owners.
