The municipalities of Sant Adrià de Besòs and Badalona have presented the first joint application to the new Pla de Barris from the Generalitat. They are requesting 25 million euros to regenerate 101 hectares where more than 33,000 people live.
Sant Adrià de Besòs and Badalona have broken the traditional administrative separation to present a joint application to the new Pla de Barris from the Generalitat. Under the slogan Reweaving borders: Weaving community, both municipalities aim to secure 25 million euros to implement a comprehensive programme of urban, environmental, and social regeneration over the next five years across a continuous area of 101 hectares where more than 33,000 people reside.
This is the first proposal jointly presented by two municipalities to the new Pla de Barris. The initiative, driven by the Councillor for Territory of Sant Adrià, José A. Gras, stems from a recognition: the administrative border does not exist for residents, who cross the avenue separating both cities daily to shop, study, visit health centres, or engage in sports without considering which municipality they are in.
“There is urban continuity between Sant Adrià and Badalona. People live their lives on both sides of the border. Many residents of Badalona come to the municipal market, study in our schools, or use facilities in Sant Adrià, just as it happens in the opposite direction. The problems are also shared, and therefore, the solutions must be proposed jointly,” stated Gras.
“People live their lives on both sides of the border; solutions must be proposed jointly”
The area of action includes the neighbourhoods of Sant Adrià Nord and Sant Joan Baptista in Sant Adrià, and Artigues, el Remei, Sant Roc, Sant Antoni de Llefià, and Sant Mori de Llefià in Badalona. All of them show indicators of socioeconomic vulnerability above the Catalan average, with low incomes, high unemployment rates, and a strong dependence on social benefits.
For his counterpart in Badalona, the Councillor for Territory Daniel Gracia, the project represents “an exercise in institutional maturity” that demonstrates that “administrations can work together to present projects that benefit residents who continuously move from one municipality to another without considering where one ends and the other begins.”
The programme includes 27 actions spread across projects for physical transformation, ecological transition, and community action. The investment will be distributed almost equally among these three areas, with actions ranging from the rehabilitation of housing and the creation of climate shelters to employment programmes, social inclusion, and improvement of public spaces.
Among the most relevant actions planned in Sant Adrià is the acquisition of the old Telefónica building to convert it into a facility for the elderly, the comprehensive renovation of the Ricart sports centre, and the recovery of the municipal swimming pool, in addition to the development of Can Rigalt as a metropolitan centre dedicated to innovation, training, and economic development.
In Badalona, the most ambitious project will be the transformation of the old Sant Roc Fire Station into a Metropolitan Centre for Arts and Crafts, designed as a vocational training space to improve the employment prospects of young people and adults from both municipalities. Gracia believes this facility will have a strong social component, as it will help generate opportunities in one of the areas with the highest vulnerability rates in the metropolitan area.
The project also includes aid to remove asbestos from homes, improve building accessibility, renaturalise public spaces, strengthen community mediation, combat homelessness, promote small businesses, and expand services aimed at families, women, and young people.
The management will fall to a joint office attached to the Consorci del Besòs, a governance model that aims to consolidate a different way of intervening in a territory where the needs of residents transcend municipal boundaries.
For Daniel Gracia, this application is part of a shift in scale that should extend to other shared projects among the municipalities of the Besòs. The councillor argues that supramunicipal administrations have a “historical debt” to this territory and believes that initiatives like the Pla de Barris, the transformation of the Tres Xemeneies, the development of the Inditex area, or the renovation of Alfons XIII avenue demonstrate a change in trend.
“Supramunicipal administrations have a debt to this territory”
“For the last thirty years, a large part of the investments have concentrated on the Llobregat axis. Now it is time to reverse that situation because the residents of the Besòs also deserve it,” stated Gracia.
This reflection ties in with that of José A. Gras. “For many years we have intervened as if there were two distinct cities when the reality is that we are talking about the same urban space. This Pla de Barris allows us to start planning together for a territory that residents have long lived as one,” he concluded.
The resolution of the Pla de Barris call will be known in the coming months. If successful, the 25 million euros will be executed over a five-year horizon, with the joint office of the Consorci del Besòs as the managing body.
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