The City Council of Badalona (North Barcelona) has asked the Department of Territory of the Generalitat that, through the Housing Agency of Catalonia, competent in the matter, open “a line of direct help” so that families affected by the collapse of Calle Canigó can face the execution of the structural reinforcement and rehabilitation works needed by the 21 buildings.
The third deputy mayor of the City Council, Daniel Gracia, has addressed a letter to the Minister of Territory in which, in addition to requesting this aid for the neighbors, he proposes that the object of the agreement that the Generalitat had proposed be modified, and that the new object is “the collaboration between the Badalona City Council and the Department of Territory of the Generalitat and the Housing Agency for the management of this extraordinary line of direct aid to the families affected by the collapse of Calle Canigó, 9 for the execution of the structural reinforcement and rehabilitation works of the 21 affected buildings.”
In this letter, Daniel Gracia recalls that the City Council “has already inspected each of the 434 affected entities, carrying out shoring work to be able to provisionally ensure the habitability of the homes” and that, with these inspections already carried out, “files have been initiated since the Disciplinary Service of the City Council with the orders for the execution of the structural reinforcement and rehabilitation works for each of the affected communities of owners.”
The deputy mayor and councilor for Urban Planning of Badalona reviews, in his letter, the development of events since the collapse that caused three fatalities occurred, on February 6, at number 9 Canigó Street and points out that All the affected buildings were executed by the same developer in the period from 1954 to 1960, which led to the assumption that the execution of work on all of them was carried out using the same construction system and using the same construction materials as the damaged building. . This fact, says Gracia, “made us anticipate that surely in other buildings in this area, there would also be structural problems and there would be a need to inspect them as soon as possible, to guarantee the safety of the people residing in these 21 properties.”
Given the need to act quickly, the Urban Discipline Service, together with the collaboration of the professional structural architecture firm Seguí Arquitectura, began the inspection and provisional shoring work of the buildings. The letter states that “there are still three vacated buildings (Canigó nos. 7 and 9 and Ausiàs March no. 118)” and that “in order to reoccupy these buildings it is necessary to first carry out structural reinforcement and rehabilitation works.”
The letter also recalls that work has been underway with the Territori on the signing of a collaboration agreement “which had as its objective the collaboration between the Department, the College of Architects of Catalonia, the College of Technical Architecture of Barcelona and the Association of Structural Consultants and the Badalona City Council, to carry out a single and agreed diagnosis among the experts, of the possible structural pathologies, which will allow clear rehabilitation prescriptions to be reached, for the buildings located in the block of the damaged building on Canigó street no. 9 of the Raval of Badalona”. He then points out, however, that “the inspection work on all the buildings has already been carried out and what is needed, from this moment on, is to proceed with the execution of the structural reinforcement and rehabilitation works on all of them.” buildings”.