The end of 2024 comes with an unexpected reclassification, which is being prepared by the Madrid City Council on the grounds of El Corte Inglés in Campo de las Unidas, in the Hortaleza district. The proposal, which has been made public in the middle of the Christmas break, attempts to avoid the demolition of the shopping center, which was forced by the Supreme Court five years ago after verifying how the council had allowed the company to build more square meters than allowed. in the ordering.
Despite the demolition ruling, an intrajudicial mediation agreement in 2023 allowed El Corte Inglés to skip the demolition if it in turn transferred land to the Madrid City Council to compensate for the illegal situation created. The terms of this negotiation were only partially known and now, with the publication of a specific modification of the General Urban Planning Plan, a puzzle has finally come together that includes the transfer of some adjacent land and a new provision for the city’s cycling network. .
The proposal, to which Somos Madrid has had access, includes increasing the buildability of the plot at Avenida de los Andes 50, where El Corte Inglés has its Campo de las Unidas center, a short distance from Ifema. In exchange, the company will deliver to the City Council two plots for residential use, located on Guadalajara 25 and Juan Martínez Arroyo 12 streets, which will become residential and intended for public facilities.
The proposal takes advantage of the recent Omnibus Law that modifies the Land Law of the Community of Madrid to propose an urban planning operation that includes an increase in tertiary commercial buildability of 8,739.50 square meters for El Corte Inglés. According to the economic impact study included in the documentation for this procedure, the added impact value in this operation is €1,185.20 per m2, which brings the increase in the value of the land where the shopping center is located.
In a letter sent by El Corte Inglés to the City Council to which Somos Madrid has had access, the company undertakes to transfer the two aforementioned plots, which reach 2,378.50 m2, in addition to paying the financial charges corresponding to the execution and financing of the undeveloped roads (458,883.87 euros, according to the valuation carried out by the Department of Urbanization) and the free transfer of the roads that are part of the plot Guadalajara 25.
The Almeida Government assures in the proposal to modify the PGOUM that the entire action seeks to promote the bicycle as a sustainable means: “The proposal arises from the opportunity, convenience and need to correct the deficit of local provisions in the environment, which would allow obtaining endowment land to support the municipal public infrastructure of the cycling ring,” he states in one of the texts that are part of the argument that supports this operation.
The intention of the council is to implement in the transferred plots a “Sustainable Mobility Center” linked to the municipal cycling infrastructure, of which it does not give too many details beyond saying that it will be “aimed at promoting the use of bicycles as a sustainable way.” of mobility as well as other means of active mobility.” It justifies its location by the proximity of the green cycling ring and ensures that it will have a built surface much smaller than the set of pre-existing uses. Among the possibilities proposed in this place are those of opening secure parking there for bicycles and other Personal Mobility Vehicles, as well as incorporating a permanent base for the public bicycle rental system, Bicimad. “It will be a reference center for innovation, research and dissemination of new urban transport models based on healthy and recreational activity,” says the Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility area in its argument.
The modification project has been in the public information period since Saturday, December 21, and the date to present allegations ends on January 20, 2025.
The reclassification of Méndez Álvaro’s Hipecor, in the courts
The irregular situation of this El Corte Inglés center comes from a municipal license granted in 2013 that was later annulled by the courts, following a lawsuit from an individual. The courts assured that the Madrid City Council had failed to comply with the Land Law both for the division of the land and for the parking reserves, allowing the chain of shopping centers to exceed the buildable area in three places: Serrano (6,500 m2), Campo de las Nations (11,300 m2) and Méndez Álvaro (7,500 m2).
El Corte decided to get rid of the Serrano center and agreed with the City Council to modify the PGOUM in its old Hipercor de Méndez Álvaro, which closed in February of this year. There he had previously agreed with the Almeida Government to build two 27-story office towers, with a notable increase in buildability, to address the demolition of the Supreme Court ruling. The council approved this reclassification in 2023 with the votes in favor of PP and Vox, and the rejection of PSOE and Más Madrid. Thanks to her, the El Corte Inglés land in Méndez Álvaro became worth 29 million euros more. To which another 47.5 million expected with the sale of the towers will be added.
The project went ahead with controversy: the Community of Madrid itself showed its reservations about the approach and a year ago forced Cibeles to remake the urban project because it presented “shortcomings and deficiencies” that made its execution unfeasible. Later, the PSOE denounced it in court because they considered that this modification of the General Urban Planning Plan of Madrid (PGOUM) “is a very clear and very serious case of an urban planning mistake made ad hoc to the interests of a private person and against the interests of the citizenry.”
The socialists indicated that the law requires that, in the event of any increase in buildability, that is, profit for a private person, they must give up part of those meters to the City Council for public services. “We consider it to be a consensual scam,” they added in a press release in which they clearly spoke of an “urban planning blunder.” The TSJM accepted the lawsuit for processing, but has not yet ruled on it.
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