Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s flagship project in terms of housing, the Vive affordable rental plan, has been accumulating vicissitudes for months in the first promotions delivered to tenants in Alcorcón. Since the successful bidders began to collect the keys, damage and breakdowns due to construction defects have been accumulating to the dismay of the new neighbors, who had been promised top quality homes. The latest event was the rupture of a pipe inside one of the blocks, which resulted in flooding of hallways and leaks between floors, so that it seemed like it was raining from one floor to another.
The rupture of the pipeline was not due to the rains, according to a spokesperson for the Housing Department and confirmed by residents of the property. “The fault was resolved on the same day and the supply was restored,” adds Housing, which indicates that the damage caused will be fixed and explains that the problem was in “a junction joint of the hot water pipe just before the meter of a dwelling”.
The neighbors have been organizing themselves through a WhatsApp group in which they report, since the arrival of the first tenants in March, the numerous incidents that have occurred. The list is long and repetitive: elevators that do not work, uneven floors, poorly finished furniture or drainage problems in garages that force cars to be taken out onto the street to avoid damaging the sheet metal. Even some were more serious, such as the fall of a wall outside one of the ground floors in the summer, an event that was explained by a supposed “sail effect” due to the excessive wind. Less dangerous, but equally annoying, is the constant flooding of the land every time it rains heavily, as happened specifically in August and September, according to what the neighbors also report and can be seen in the videos uploaded to social networks.
For each event, those affected must register an incident in a mobile phone application so that it can be attended to, but the accumulation of problems causes delays that irritate residents. “They told us that we were going to have prompt and humanized attention,” protests one of the tenants, who indicates that many of the problems are not minor issues, but structural ones such as, when it rains, the water from the upstairs neighbor’s balcony falls directly into his.
Figures and promises
The president of the Community of Madrid even promised the construction of 25,000 homes in 2019, when she was still a candidate. The figure was progressively reduced, as the years went by and the apartments remained undelivered. The current commitment of the regional government is to have 10,500 ready by the end of the legislature. But at the moment there are only 581, according to the data given on Wednesday by the Executive spokesperson, Miguel Ángel García. Ayuso says that it is not social housing, but affordable, and the Community of Madrid takes pride in its quality. In the case of Alcorcón, the houses “have been built following the industrialized building model, a technique that provides important advances by introducing automation processes, reducing water and energy consumption, generating less emissions and waste, and making it possible to incorporate “robotization and digitalization techniques that improve execution times,” boasted the statement that was published when the first properties were awarded.
The Department of Housing also highlighted, with the delivery of keys, the “large common areas with swimming pool, gym, changing rooms, multi-sports court, coworking room and green and children’s leisure spaces.” The reality is less apparent; The pool, with a maximum depth of 1.40 meters, is rather small; the ‘coworking’, a small room that initially had no doors or windows. When these were installed, mold had already made an appearance. The “affordable” quality of the prices is also a matter of debate. Some tenants are paying more than 1,000 euros, practically those on the free market, because the expenses of the neighborhood association and the Real Estate Tax are being added to the rent in the receipts.
From Madrid to the US, via the Cayman Islands
The construction of the two developments in Alcorcón – 274 apartments – was carried out by the company Culmia, winner of the lot offered by the Community of Madrid and whose ownership ultimately refers, after passing through the Cayman Islands, to the American fund Oaktree. In total, it has been awarded the construction of 2,900 homes, as detailed by Culmia on its website.
“We could not imagine construction defects like the ones that exist,” protests the mayor of Alcorcón, Candelaria Testa (PSOE), who recalls that the land on which the developments are built, in the southern expansion of the town, was transferred to the Regional government 15 years ago, in the times of Esperanza Aguirre. The councilor also criticizes that Ayuso refuses to declare the municipality a stressed area, as the local government defends. Alcorcón threatens to take the IBI to the tenants to court and demands a “comprehensive evaluation of the state of the property.”
The socialists govern in Alcorcón in coalition with Ganar Alcorcón and Más Madrid, all contrary to the model applied for the Vive plan. “This is not about building for the sake of building, it is about doing it well while guaranteeing rights,” Ganar Alcorcón councilor Raquel Rodríguez protested in X. “It is the chronicle of an announced nonsense,” censures Trinidad Castillo, from Más Madrid. The spokesperson for the formation in the Madrid Assembly, Manuela Bergerot, summarizes: “Ayuso has done absolutely nothing for the right to housing in five years and the VIVE Plan is the emblem of this: they sold it as the affordable housing plan most ambitious in Europe and the only innovation is to bring floodable flats to Madrid.”
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