El Besòs i el Maresme, a district in Sant Martí, Barcelona, is set for one of the largest urban interventions in the city in decades. The City Council and the Catalan government have agreed to back the rehabilitation of approximately 4,000 flats across nearly 200 buildings in the neighbourhood. This plan will unfold over the next ten years, requiring an investment exceeding €400 million.
The operation will be managed by a new public company, established to coordinate efforts in an area with significant structural housing problems. The investment will be shared, with the City Council contributing €265 million and the Catalan government providing €150 million. Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni and Presidency Minister Albert Dalmau presented the initiative as a turning point in institutional cooperation, highlighting that the project was only possible due to a new understanding between administrations. Collboni noted that the city has not faced a transformation of this scale in two decades.
Addressing Decades of Neglect
The agreement aims to correct a long-standing deficit in El Besòs i el Maresme, an area that has suffered from residential building degradation for years. The goal is to reverse a situation that administrations recognise as prolonged and particularly complex. Collboni stated during the presentation, "It is a matter of dignity and political and moral responsibility to respond to families who have been living in very precarious conditions for too long." He added that such conditions are incompatible with the standards of a city like Barcelona. Dalmau described the project as a strategic action for the entire country, emphasising it will settle a historical debt with this urban environment.
Most of the affected properties were built in the 1950s and 1960s to house working populations and those from shanty towns in the metropolitan area. Over time, many of these blocks have developed serious structural deficiencies. According to the Federation of Neighbourhood Associations of Barcelona (FAVB), nearly 5,000 of the 8,000 homes with significant pathologies identified in the city are concentrated in this area. Problems such as cracks, shoring, and permanent scaffolding are common in many buildings. Around 30,000 people live in this environment, many with lower socioeconomic vulnerability levels than the average for Barcelona and Catalonia.
Previous Efforts and Future Support
New rehabilitation subsidies will be adjusted according to household income, potentially covering the entire cost of the works in some cases. Until now, interventions have been sporadic and limited in scope. Current municipal aid has allowed work on about 200 homes in nine buildings. Additionally, the Collboni government and ERC recently agreed to allocate approximately €15 million to improve 720 homes in ten other blocks in the neighbourhood. While these actions represent progress, officials admit they have been insufficient given the scale of the problem.
This plan is also part of broader agreements reached earlier this year between the municipal government and BComú. These agreements sought to strengthen the Catalan government's involvement in rehabilitating neighbourhoods with high social and urban complexity. Among the agreements was the proposal to create a specific public entity to streamline the management of these interventions, a measure now materialised in the new company responsible for executing the project in El Besòs i el Maresme.
