The Illa Eficient was presented as a model of collaboration at all levels: Collaboration between neighbors –because it involved an entire block of Eixample–, and collaboration between individuals and administrations. The project promoted the rehabilitation and energy efficiency of the buildings and the programs and subsidies from the ministry, Generalitat and City Council allowed the works to be carried out with significant savings for the owners. The Habitat Group led the initiative and launched a mechanism that is now about to collapse: “Everything depends on the pending contributions from the Generalitat,” says the general director of Illa Eficient-Habitat Futura, Cèlia Galera.
“The Ministry of Ecological Transition and the City Council made their respective contributions, but the Generalitat has not done so yet,” maintains Galera. As established in the Illa Eficient master plan, presented seven years ago, the residents assumed the cost of 50% of the works and the other half was assumed by the administrations, 60% by the Generalitat and 40% by the City Council. from Barcelona. And in that initial plan, half of what the Generalitat contributed was subsidized by the ministry. “The accumulated figure of what the Generalitat should contribute now amounts to almost one million euros,” says Galera. In the master plan, the global investment in the eight blocks of the first phase initially amounted to almost four million euros.
This situation puts in check all the pending actions of this first phase of the block, included between Gran Vía, Viladomat, Diputació and Calabria. And, of course, the continuation of the project, which intended to cover the rest of the buildings, 22 in total. “For a year we have been unsuccessfully demanding that the Generalitat assume the commitments it made,” he adds.
According to the Territori Department, the actions planned in the Illa Eficient project were part of the Housing Plan, “which is governed by strict rules that cannot be changed or expanded; and currently the Plan does not contemplate some of the actions that have been carried out and that have been absorbed by the Next Generation Funds.” The department is studying “if the commitments of old departments can be adapted to the new legal conditions.” Furthermore, he adds that since there are no budgets, there is no immediate item planned. Pending the resolution of Territori’s legal services, the concern of the Habitat Group and the neighbors is increasing. “One of the singularities of this project, which was carried out in the form of a cooperative, is that individuals and administrations went together; Who is going to assume the pending costs now? That is not what we agreed with the Generalitat,” Galera insists.
