Sabadell City Council will allocate 220,000 euros to remove the concrete blocks and the steel structure that supports the façade of the old Bosser factory in the Center neighborhood, protected because it contains some arcades. The council granted a building permit in 2011 to make houses preserving the façade, for which a fastening system was installed to be able to work from inside. But the promotion, which has undergone several construction company changes, was stopped in 2018, taking up space and making the streets ugly, according to residents’ complaints. Now, the City Council has decided that it will go ahead with the work to dignify the environment of the factory and that it will issue the receipt to the company that owns the site.
The owners of the old factory received a building license in 2011 for a space located in the Center at the corner of Alemania and Ferran Casablancas streets. The objective was to build a housing development that had to respect the facade, protected for its historical interest, and that rises to about five stories high.
The protection should include the preservation of some arches, where it was planned to install a set of stained glass windows that would give the complex its personality. For this reason, some provisional concrete blocks were installed to support the steel structure that would guarantee that the wall would not collapse, some blocks that were located in the case of Ferran Casablancas street on the sidewalk that touched right at the factory, canceling it, and on Calle Alemania on the opposite corner of the street, eliminating parking spaces.
“The project does not comply with the neighborhood’s urban regulations for building, neither height nor volumetry, and we believe that having to respect the façade is to be able to obtain the maximum number of homes,” says Joan RodrÃguez, a member of the Bosser Affected Platform, a group of neighbors who have organized to demand the removal of all elements from the public thoroughfare. Although the works began in 2014, it suffered a series of stoppages and changes of construction company, and since May 2018 it has been completely stopped, revealing from the exterior windows the skeleton of the half-finished promotion, and leaving the space with an aspect of total abandonment.
After five years without activity and with the elements getting in the way of their day-to-day lives, the residents have organized to demand the removal of the blocks, as well as the perimeter fence, which by rebounding leaves two pedestrian crossings inactive in a section along the that many schoolchildren pass. To do this, they have painted the blocks and have hung posters on the balconies, in addition to establishing themselves as a platform and transferring their discomfort to the consistory.
The City Council assures that the General Plan of 1993 already contemplated that floors could be built on that site with the same height as the old factory, but the problem is that the license granted to carry out the works has already expired. For this reason, it has been decided to get down to work and remove the fastening systems.
“The City Council has initiated the procedure to award the work and remove the blocks, some work that it will assume but that in a subsidiary way is already claimed from the company that owns the plot,” explains the Councilor for Urban Development, Mar Molina. They will consist of removing the blocks from the public road and moving the fastening systems inside the property, which will imply accessing the interior of the space and which may generate a new problem.
“We suspect that the game is short and that the bid will be deserted, but that the property will also cause problems, something that can lengthen the procedure a lot in the courts,” predicts RodrÃguez.
