A contentious administrative court has rejected the request of the government of Badalona (Barcelonès Nord) to urgently evict nearly 150 people who occupy the former public institute B-9, in the Remei neighborhood, according to El Periódico and confirmed by ACN. The judge knocks down the petition, reproaching the City Council for not offering a housing alternative to the squatters – the majority of whom are immigrants – who could be left completely vulnerable if they are evicted. At the same time, she also says that the City Council should have initiated an administrative procedure before resorting to justice to promote an express eviction. The mayor, Xavier Garcia Albiol, has once again requested the eviction, citing lack of security and problems of incivility.
The judge says that the Badalona government opened judicial channels to obtain an urgent eviction without the guarantees of a prior administrative process. She thus considers that, before resorting to the courts, Albiol should have initiated an ordinary procedure at the local level with which he notified the squatters that they had to leave the institute, property of the council. In this way, she points out that they would have been able to decide whether to leave or appeal the notification.
Regarding the housing alternative, it indicates that, before the order in which the eviction was denied, the judge had already asked the council about the possibility of offering housing to the occupants.
After receiving the ‘no’ to the eviction, Albiol has again asked the judge to carry out the eviction because he sees a “great risk” of fire due to the manipulation of the electrical panels and because he affirms that the raid is causing problems of crime and incivility . The mayor expresses his willingness to demolish the institute to build the second police station of the Urban Police.
Municipal sources consulted by ACN specify that the first judicial request focused on warning of the risks, while this second request in the courts affects the need to recover ownership of the building, property of the council.
A few days ago, the president of the PSC municipal group in the Badalona City Council, Fernando Carrera, already warned of the situation of the B-9 and denounced the occupation. The socialist assured that the situation has worsened in recent months with “more people living poorly in the building” but also with an increase in “drug trafficking, dangerous dogs and a lot of insecurity.” Carrera assured that he is working on a parliamentary proposal so that “the B-9 is not a powder keg with no return.”
