Barcelona Metropolitan Area | site visit

SITE VISITS FINAL MEETING SUB>URBAN 26TH APRIL 2018

Music school and Arts Centre (EMCA) Hospitalet de Llobregat Sub>Urban topics: Transforming for social inclusion

SUMMARY Running for twelve years now, the Music School and Arts Centre (EMCA) from L’Hospitalet (ES) focuses on using the arts as an instrument for cohesion, so‐ cial mix and increasing the academic achievement.

Its activities focus on the economically deprived areas of the city with high levels of unemployment and urban poverty. The centre has been successfully fighting urban segregation and exclusion by creating a symphonic orchestra, big bands, pop‐rock, or jazz groups that offer spaces to get together and facili‐ tate cultural exchanges. By providing education for all ages, EMCA also improves the skills and abilities of the students, providing positive effects on their academic achievements. More than 1 775 students have been involved in the orchestra of the Center that performed, only in the 2015 ‐2016 academic year, more than 330 concerts for a total audience of nearly 34 000 persons.

THE SOLUTIONS OFFERED BY THE GOOD PRACTICE L’Hospitalet is a city neighbouring Barcelona, with 262 798 inhabitants. It is Catalonia’s second city, with 28% of its population born abroad and with some of the city’s neighbourhoods where the non‐ EU population exceeds 40%.

The local authority service “Music School ‐ Arts Cen‐ tre” is one of the solutions devised for intervening in those neighbourhoods. It uses a new 21st‐cen‐ tury educational‐facility model, combining music, theatre and dance education for all citizens. It acts in eight schools in the more disadvantaged areas, to enhance learning within the school day from the age of four, providing positive effects on academic achievement, integrating pupils with a migratory

background and giving them opportunities thanks to education that puts group before individual prac‐ tices.

They have no economic barriers at EMCA. The sym‐ phonic orchestra, the big band, the poprock or jazz groups underpin the real cohesion between citizens from all cultural and econòmic backgrounds. Infras‐ tructure is also important, and the site of the EMCA itself is located in an area that was subject to inter‐ vention within the framework of the ERDF’s Urban Projects Initiative along with the eight schools, creating a major network of cultural infrastructure capable of revitalising their environment.

22@ and Superblocks Barcelona

Sub>Urban topics: Transforming planning Transforming for intensified use

22@ The 22@Barcelona project fills the city’s need to recover both economic and social dynamism in the old industrial areas of Poblenou and to create a diverse and compact environment where produc‐ tive spaces coexist with research, training and tech transfer centres, as well as subsidized housing, fa‐ cilities and green areas that improve the quality of work and life in the neighbourhood.

22@Barcelona provides a new, high quality, diverse, ecologically efficient and economically strong urban model that strikes a balance between production and neighbourhood life.

SUPERBLOCKS The superblock (in physical terms) is composed of a set of basic roads forming a polygon or inner area (called intervia) that contains within it several blocks of the current urban fabric. This new urban cell has both an interior and exterior component. The inte‐ rior (intervia) is closed to through vehicles and open to residents, primarily. The exterior forms the basic road network on the periphery, and is approximate‐ ly 400 metres wide for use by motorized vehicles.

CARRER PIRINEUS,

SANTA COLOMA DE GRAMENET Sub>Urban topics: Transforming planning Transforming private space

SUMMARY Pirineus street is located in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a city on the left bank of Besós River.

From 1955 to 1975 Santa Coloma’s population increased from 20,000 to 140,000 inhabitants. In those days the city grew without the social infra‐ structure and open spaces. Since 1975 these lacks are being tackled focusing on public facilities for example with projects like the Bru axis. However the new immigration wave from outside the EU, the construction boom and the subsequent financial crisis have hit strongly to this neighbourhood block‐ ing the traditional regeneration tools on building renewal and increasing the neighbourhood decay.

PLANNING PROCESS To unblock this situation and help the private property regenerate themselves, the council combined two laws and designed a clear legal framework for the project.

1. Defining a regeneration area on the Pirineus Street using the right to housing act. The main implications are: - -

Owners must do the improvements the administration requires If they don’t do it they could even lose their property.

2. Use of the law (3R act) which implies a mechanism that planning uses for new developments.

The law makes it possible to define an area in which the burdens and benefits are shared proportionally to their own % of ownership. The main implications are:

- - - -

Owners must pay the proportional part of the cost of the refurbishment The property is the warrantee of the payment (access to the Housing Property Register).

The administration can make pressure to the private to recover the money.

With this legal framework the council has done a feasible refurbishment project for every block discussed and negotiated with the owners through a clear bottom up approach.

Depending on the type of tenure, the owners have different possibilities to pay the refurbishment: - - -

Owners who let the flat have to pay everyt‐ hing at the beginning.

Empty flats owned by banks or investors have to pay everything at the beginning.

Owners who live there have three possibilities to pay: (1) Pay everything at the beginning, (2) Pay the debt monthly, (3) Don’t pay it, and annotate the debt in the Housing Property Register.

QUESTION: How are you boosting innovation in your cities? Do you have a specific projects or sites for that? If so, are those mostly located in your fringe?