Just ten days before the 28M municipal elections, two of the main urban controversies in the city are back in the news. That of El Cabanyal-Canyamelar seems to be closed with the approval, soon, of the Special Plan of Cabanyal (PEC). The Socialist candidate and Town Planning Councilor, Sandra Gómez, explained this week that it already has “all the favorable reports” and that it will be approved in the next Town Planning territorial commission.
Thus, the controversial proposal, repealed by the Ribó government in 2015, to build a large boulevard overlooking the sea from Blasco Ibáñez, the origin of the protests of the Salvem el Cabanyal neighborhood movement, is buried. The PEC will convert 135,982 m2 of the neighborhood into green space and will expand the pedestrian space, a document that also has reluctance from residents, since certain social movements consider that it has deficiencies since the neighborhood needs renovations and not new blocks of buildings. The PEC provides for the creation of 1,150 homes in total.
Overall, the PEC has already passed procedures such as the inspection of the General Directorate of the Coast and the Sea, dependent on the Ministry for Ecological Transition, which has given the go-ahead after the Valencia City Council has corrected the issues raised by this department of the central administration and has made the necessary modifications, such as the reduction from 15 floors to 6 of the hotel complex projected in this fishing district.
With the approval of the PEC there is a certain consensus, since the Popular Party has ruled out assuming the theses of Rita Barberá, prior to the entry of PSPV and CompromÃs in the mayor’s office. In the PEC vote in the municipal plenary session last January, the popular abstained, along with Ciudadanos and Vox.
However, things are not so defined in the north of Valencia. The resolution of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV), which rejects the suspension of the Benimaclet Integrated Action Program (PAI), marks a new turning point in the urban development of the neighborhood and aims to be one of the issues key to the next legislature.
The mayor of Valencia and candidate for re-election, Joan Ribó, has confirmed that the Consistory will appeal the ruling. “Metrovacesa says that they have some rights, we believe that they do not and we are going to appeal that sentence. But regardless of the legal issue, we are going to defend something that Metrovacesa does not understand, and that is that there must be a transition between the city and the orchard”, Ribó pointed out this week.
Meanwhile, the socialist Gómez “has guaranteed” that the residents of the area will have a garden in that space, in response to neighborhood demands. The deputy mayor assures that the resolution of the TSJCV will not affect the path adopted by Urban Planning to provide a solution to the part pending development in the neighborhood, which has insisted that it be done with the criteria of the Special Plan that the area of ​​development decided to carry out. Urbanism that he directs and that is what the PSPV has “always” “defended” for this area.
For its part, the PP calls the management of the local government team in matters of urban planning and housing an “absolute failure” after learning of the ruling. The councilor of the Popular Party Juan Giner Corell affirms that “it is unpresentable that the PAI of Benimaclet has been blocked for 8 years in the Valencia City Council due to the discrepancies between CompromÃs and PSOE, and now it is the Justice itself that takes the color out of them because they do not they don’t even know how to process a file well”, he stated. He affirms that the PAI contemplated more than 400 subsidized homes that now “are up in the air, and the biggest losers are the young people of this city who can neither buy nor rent a home”.
The urban development of Benimaclet has shown the differences between the two government partners. The promoter foresees 1,345 homes, but CompromÃs is not willing to assume more than 750. The other day, after knowing the sentence, Gómez warned his partners: “You have to be very careful when making decisions because it can cost us dearly “.
And it is that the debate -in a context of shortage of public housing- will mark the next legislature with an uncertain result whoever governs governs. Not even a victory for the left would make the path clear because it may be that, as some suggest, there will be changes and the Department of Urban Planning will change hands.