An Italian woman of about 20 years old says at the door of number 12 of Ronda Sant Pau in Barcelona that she will only spend a month in the estate, that she is in Barcelona while she is doing some kind of seminar, that they pay about a thousand euros a month for the ‘apartment… “but my flatmate takes that. I have to go, sorry, I have an online class”.
This block of large luxury homes of more than 200 m2, with five bedrooms and three bathrooms each, some even equipped with a jacuzzi, which became a disturbing ghost building, finally has tenants, legal tenants, clothes lying on the balconies and names in mailboxes after more than 30 years uninhabited! Here, in a super-central and truly privileged location, finding a flat is a heroic undertaking, between the Raval, Sant Antoni and Poble Sec neighborhoods.
“Yes, people have been living in this building for several months – says the woman who comes every week to clean the common areas of the estate – but I don’t know of anyone in particular, many students come, I think they are students, because they do holiday or seasonal rental, or whatever they call it”.
We are, moreover, before everything a symbol. The government of the then mayor Ada Colau announced in 2016 that it would fine the owners of this five-storey building for keeping it empty for so many years, for breaking the Housing Act. The fine could reach half a million euros. But, later, the City Council could not process the sanction because, among other circumstances, the flats in question were not registered as housing.
The Colau team also considered having the City Council buy the property to use for social rent, but this initiative did not succeed either.
“Indeed – remembers a salesperson in the building -, some flats are rented by the month. We had to renovate a large part of the houses and turn them into apartments of around 60 m2, dividing each of the large flats into three. The problem is that they were very big houses, too much. There are still a couple of flats of 200 m2 that will be renovated in a second phase, those on the first two floors, but those on the remaining three floors are divided and have had tenants since the summer”. Years ago, the possibility of building a hotel or tourist apartments was also studied, but these plans were also unsuccessful.
In addition, the farm was occupied throughout a good season. It was usurped by force by very alternative activists from the Poble Sec neighborhood during the mourning for the death of a colleague named Pablo Molano. Molano was a very close friend of Colau herself before she entered more conventional politics.
The history of La Rimaia as a squatter center was rather short, just a few months, but then the usurpation was hailed by many as a symbol of the fight against real estate speculation.
The farm hosted some families at the time. Then the Barcelona City Council distilled an intense squatter-friendly sentiment. Colau and his family were not at all happy to be evicted from La Rimaia.
Then, after the corresponding eviction, with the aim of slowing down other occupations, during a long season, an employee spent the hours wearing a reflective vest, sitting on a beach chair planted in the middle of the sidewalk, between the Ronda Sant Pau and Parallel Avenue. You didn’t know if that was the best or the worst job in the world.
