The Salvem el Litoral platform, which brings together opponents of the Urban Master Plan project of the Three Chimneys of Sant Adrià de Besòs, presented to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), an administrative contentious appeal which has now been accepted for processing .
For months now, the entities that form the Entesa platform for a large coastal park in Besòs have been collecting funds to face the project in court. They especially criticize that the area will become a large neighborhood with 1,800 homes on the seafront “in a flood-prone area at the mouth of the Besòs.” Furthermore, they regret the lack of specificity regarding the social, health or educational facilities to serve the nearly 5,000 new residents.
Environmental and neighborhood entities consider that the approved urban planning does not respond to the social needs of the territory and goes contrary to the recommendations of the Consell Assessor pel Desenvolupament Sostenible, to the climate emergency situation and to the objectives of the Conservatori del Litoral, which among Other recommendations warn of the need to deurbanize the coast.
The entities opposed to the project criticize that the construction of housing in this area, despite the fact that some are officially protected, does not respond to the need to facilitate access to housing, but rather to generate capital gains to pay for the development and provide “obscene benefits to the owners of the land, Endesa, Santander and the Metropolitan Area of ??Barcelona”.
They also regret that the Catalan government tries to disguise an urban project “with the promise of an audiovisual Hub” and the “Catalunya Media City” without even specifying the allocated budget. They add that all this will mean an “unacceptable intervention” in the assets of the thermal power plant.
The Department of Territory of the Generalitat gave its approval to the Tres Xemeneies PDU, a project that will transform the last strategic piece of the metropolitan coastline. The Catalan executive indicated that the Tres Xemeneies will become a new “sustainable” neighborhood, with diverse uses and dominated by public space. According to the calculations of the Generalitat, about 80 percent of the surface will be allocated to community facilities, streets, squares and a large urban park of about 10 hectares that will act as a transition space between the coastline and the built front. In addition, the area will host a specialized sector of economic activity, the Digital, Audiovisual and Video Game Hub, “called to become a global benchmark.”
