It seems that the time has come to talk about one of the most sordid issues that the previous Barcelona City Council left behind to the city. On Monday, in the Readers’ Letters section, Carles Roura Fornés published one that should be reread. He wrote: “Recently and for the third time there has been a court ruling against the project on the block of Consell de Cent Street and surrounding areas undertaken by Ada Colau and Janet Sanz, openly violating the ordinances because, as the ruling says, there had to be approved as a modification of the General Metropolitan Plan and was carried out as an ordinary work, when in no case can it be considered that way. Taking these judicial rulings into account, will there be no sanctions for abuse of political power?” I will answer you myself, Mr. Roura: there will not be one.
That same Monday, a few pages later, Enric Sierra, deputy editor of this newspaper, dedicated an article to the case where he acknowledged that “little is said about the assumption of responsibilities by the authors of such a big botch.” He is right. There should be much more talk. Sierra mentions the “negative effects on mobility that this project and others like it have left in the city” and how they have skyrocketed housing prices and contributed to the gentrification that they supposedly wanted to combat.
He says: “Collboni knows that he has a hot potato that could be very expensive, because the sentences require those streets and squares to be restored as they were before the works, which cost more than 50 million.”
We all know there will be no restitution. “Who pays for all this?” Josep Pla asked one day in New York. There is no record that anyone answered him. In this case in Barcelona, ??we citizens will pay for it, once again, while those responsible for the botch-up walk away with a smile, smiling and, yes, with the Palestinian scarf around their neck.
