The Valencian Community lost nearly 3,000 commercial basements in one year, this newspaper published yesterday. Many of them are in the city of Valencia, where for weeks neighborhood associations and individuals have been denouncing in forums, meetings and social networks that these premises are being converted into tourist apartments, an issue that greatly worries local businesses. .
“El Cabanyal and Ciutat Vella are out of control and now we are very concerned about what could happen in Eixample,” explains Borja Ávila, president of the Association of Merchants of the Historic Center and Ensanche of València and member of Confecomerç CV, the entity that yesterday put on the table the relevant number of commercial closures that have occurred in the last year.
The worry that this reality, which is increasingly thriving in some areas of the city, means for commerce, has an explanation: they defend that if a street is left without shops that, little by little, absorb tourism, the commercial axis disappears and, with this, the importance of the sector. “València has grown a lot, but the commercial hubs are very few and we cannot go any lower. We put this issue on the table when we met with the Valencia City Council, which told us that it must be managed by neighborhoods,” Avila says.
In this case, if it is by districts, the merchants are clear: the focus must now be placed on El Cabanyal and Ciutat Vella, where they assure that they are “uncontrolled.” Ávila understands that it is due to the reality of some establishments that “due to their uniqueness do not work commercially and that is why they try to put them on the market by renting rooms or as an entire unit.” The returns are, he assures, above 19%, compared to the 5% that a traditional business housed at that same level can leave. “València does not have available land and this formula is used, but what happens in commerce is fundamental because it is going down and we ask that it not go down more,” says Ávila.
The debate, already open in the city, is also linked to the lack of housing. In fact, the city’s real estate agencies recognize that, as with room rentals, there is a “boom” in this market. That is why the Real Estate Association of the Valencian Community (Asicval) advocates expediting the change of use of many of those closed ground floors – “we have many throughout Valencia,” says its president, Nora García Donet – and thus giving an outlet to those establishments so that they can also be habitual homes. Allocating them to housing or regulating it to avoid it is a debate already open in the city.
The previous local government proposed addressing commercial desertification through the “Amunt Persianes” program, a replica of the one launched in Barcelona. It went by neighborhood, but the aid to resume business in closed premises depended on the location of the premises and thus the council identified, for example, that neighborhoods such as Benicalap, Ciudad Fallera, el Botánico, el Pilar, la Roqueta, Marxalenes, Nou Moles , Russafa, Soternes, Tormos and Torrefiel had, two years ago, symptoms of severe commercial desertification.
