The perplexity shown by experts at the virulence and speed with which the tragic fire spread that caused ten deaths and destroyed two buildings in Valencia last Thursday worries citizens and alerts political leaders. Public opinion demands to know if the conditions that led to the Campanar incident can be replicated in any of its neighborhoods.
Governments such as the Catalan and Madrid governments have commissioned their respective technicians to review the housing stock in their territories in search of properties built with materials and techniques similar to those used in the cladding that firefighters and scientific police are studying in Valencia in search of data. to explain what happened.
The General Directorate of Territorial Planning of the Generalitat of Catalonia has formed a working group to evaluate whether there are properties like the burned one in Valencia. In Barcelona, ??the municipal group of Trias for Barcelona has demanded that the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni prepare a report in three months on the use of polyurethane in buildings built before the current building regulations.
Today, Monday, Más Madrid and PSOE have asked the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, for an evaluation of the state of the capital’s buildings so that they have “nothing to regret” after what happened. City councils such as the neighboring Mislata, where from the first moment the existence of a building with these characteristics was noticed, or that of Alicante, are dedicated to the same work.
The Official College of Architects of Madrid, through its vice-dean, Pablo Olalquiaga, has recommended to the neighborhood communities and property administrators who have a building with similar characteristics to the one that suffered the fire that they “hire a technician, do a review of the building and follow the recommendations on these measures.
In parallel to this complex inspection work – we are talking about an immense real estate park to analyze – the authorities set their sights on the regulations. The Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has assured in an interview with Antena 3 that her government will ask the Ministry of Housing to review the Technical Building Code, which dates back to 2006 and was modified in 2019, according to ministerial sources. .
The Technical Building Code is the regulatory framework that establishes the basic quality requirements that buildings must meet, that is, the basic safety and habitability requirements established in Law 38/1999 of November 5, on the Planning of Buildings. the building.
Ayuso explained that his Minister of Housing, Transport and Infrastructure, Jorge Rodrigo, is going to meet with the College of Architects of Madrid to “see the rules and see what has happened to put all the measures in place so that it does not happen again.”
However, sources from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda have explained to EFE that the regulations have been modified in 2019, after the fire in 2017 of the Grenfell building in London, similar to the building in Valencia, and with this modification “the measures are toughened.” “. The ministry believes it is necessary to “wait for the fire investigations to finish,” which are under summary secrecy.
