The “need to correct the deficit of local provisions in the environment, as well as to make possible the implementation of an economic activity more in line with current demands” was the starting point to implement a modification of the General Urban Planning Plan of Madrid ( PGOUM) to replace Méndez Álvaro’s Hipercor with two 100-meter towers of up to 27 floors. The urban planning irregularities of the shopping center and the subsequent procedures, however, have called into question the convenience of an operation that reaches the City Council Plenary Session for the second time after the first attempt ran aground. This is the sequence of events.
Nuevo Sur Méndez Álvaro is known for the reclassification of the land owned by El Corte Inglés, a plot of 11,811.29 square meters for tertiary commercial use, located in the Arganzuela district of Madrid. Right between the South Bus Station and the high-speed train tracks.
The reason for the operation is based on the final ruling of the Supreme Court that in 2019 condemned El Corte Inglés to demolish its shopping center because, during its construction, it ignored the initial planning and was built with more meters than allowed.
A year later, and after trying to circumvent the forced demolition in the courts, the company reached an agreement with PP, Cs and Vox during the last legislature to reclassify the plot. Thanks to the approval of the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and the then vice mayor Begoña Villacís, the current space will be divided into two: a private plot for the construction of the aforementioned towers, intended for tertiary office use, and another transferred to the City Council for the creation of a public park, under which several facilities for sports or sociocultural use would be built, still undefined.
With these changes, the company will achieve an increase in the use of the available land of 15,206.54 m2, which the municipal Urban Development area estimates to be an increase in value of more than 32.2 million euros, which, once the 10% that must pay the City Council as monetary compensation, it will bring 29 million euros to the department store company. Without forgetting that the sale of the two towers could bring another 45 million additional benefits. An operation that Más Madrid has not hesitated to describe as a complete “boom.”
The PSOE also focuses on the overlapping of green areas. According to the socialist councilor Antonio Giraldo, “with all this new buildability, the mandatory transfers of land to the City Council are high and there is not enough space in the southern plot for it. Nor can we reduce the plot of the towers (because otherwise the accounts will not work out). “What do we do?” was asked in a publication in whatever, in the basement, and the park on the top floor. It’s amazing,” he continues.
“Since when can a green area be transferred on a slab? Citizens make do with the bushes (and the 4 basements), and the company (condemned to demolish) rewards itself with more meters to do business,” he concludes.
After the Government Board initially approved Nuevo Sur Méndez Álvaro in July 2022, the General Directorate of Urban Planning, to whom the project was sent, rejected it forcefully: “Examining the file, it has been observed that in the MPG “There are a series of shortcomings and deficiencies largely due to the lack of adaptation (…) so it is necessary to justify, modify, correct and/or complete the document.” “For all of the above, it is appropriate to require the Madrid City Council to justify, modify and complete the file in the terms indicated in this report, prior to the final approval of the MPG.”
And he adds, in another paragraph that it must “be proven that the Administration’s decision to opt for it is based on a decision of prevalence of the solution most in line with the satisfaction of general interests.”
With the text returned to Cibeles, the Urban Planning Commission of the Madrid City Council initially approved the modification of the PGOUM last Monday. More Madrid and Vox abstained, while the PSOE voted against. But the vote of the PP, which achieved an absolute majority in the May elections after the Cs debacle, was enough for the file to be raised to the municipal plenary session, where it will be debated and submitted to the final vote.
Giraldo, in an audio sent to the press, has criticized the fact that the modification of the general plan has returned to the Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility commission, since “this had already passed through the commission and had already passed through the plenary session.”
“It was approved by the plenary session of the City Council, with our vote against, of course, because what is being done is a scoundrel, an endowment is being sneaked into a green area on a slab; building areas are being given away to a developer without any compensation… But the thing is that, beyond this, this file was approved by the plenary session of the City Council, it was sent to the Community of Madrid and it is the Community of Madrid itself that has returned it questioning, nothing less, than the general interest of this development,” says the socialist councilor.
“That is to say,” the councilor recaps, “that we are once again approving or rejecting this due to the incompetence of the City Council when it comes to processing these types of files. This is already quite serious, beyond the substance of the matter, which is almost worse. “It seems like an inappropriate barbarism to us,” Giraldo summarized before announcing the possible effects of its approval: “If it goes ahead, Madrid from this coming Monday will no longer have a lack of provisioned spaces because, based on this argument, every green area is then susceptible to being used underground in a stacked manner. It is a poisoned and perverse candy. Invented green zone at height,” he concludes.
