Absolute indignation and willingness to fight “in the streets and in the courts.” The residents of the Ciutat Vella, Eixample and Poblenou neighborhoods strongly reject the possibility that Barcelona City Council allows new hotels to be opened in the most central areas of the Tourist Accommodation Urban Plan (PEUAT), one of the main legacies of the former Mayor Ada Colau. The resounding “no” comes after the agreement between Junts and the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni (PSC), this Tuesday in the urban planning commission, to modify the PEUAT and allow the opening of “unique hotels” in areas where any opening is now prohibited . They are zone 1 (Ciutat Vella, part of Eixample, Gràcia or Poblenou); and zone 2 (part of the Zona Alta, Sant Martí and Diagonal Mar). On the other hand, the Restoration Guild and Barcelona Oberta, which represents the downtown businesses, applaud the measure. And meanwhile, the Hotel Guild, which has appealed the plan at least twice, celebrates that new establishments can be opened, but warns of the legal complexity of defining what a “singular” project is.
“We had asked for the possibility of opening unique projects that add value, but expressing it in the urban plan is the most complicated part to articulate,” agrees the general director of the Hotels Guild, Manel Casals. “We believe it will be restrictive, but even if the PEUAT opens briefly, taking into account that hotels are now frozen in two-thirds of the city, it is positive,” he points out and explains that he hopes to meet with Junts and the PSC to find out the details. . Among the projects that were said to have been frozen with the PEUAT were the Palau Moxó, the Palau Vilana-Perlas, the old Sant Sever hospital, or projects by Núñez and Navarro on Carrer de Ferran or Via Laietana, the Hyatt that The chain wanted to open in the Torre Agbar or the Four Seasons in the old Deutsche Bank. The Drassanes macro hotel of the Praktik brand also ran aground with the PEUAT, which in 2022 obtained a student residence license, with more than 300 beds.
Be that as it may, the concept of “singular hotel” remains to be defined. A few months ago, Mayor Collboni defended the possibility of opening hotels in buildings with heritage value that have no other possible use. Municipal sources add that they could be listed buildings, projects that have social value (for example with social integration personnel), or that give up part of the space for public facilities. In the sector, they also understand singular as a project with outstanding architecture, that improves its environment, or that represents the implementation of an international brand for the city. In this case, everyone evokes the failed implementation of luxury hotels by the Hyatt and Four Seasons chains, which hoteliers experienced as a tragedy.
None of these arguments convince the neighborhood entities, who remember that the former mayor Xavier Trias made the Ciutat Vella use plan that the former councilor Itziar González had drawn up more flexible, which represented a “drain that ended up in court.” The entities consulted in the Gòtic, Poblenou and Dreta del Eixample neighborhoods agree on three concepts: “saturated” neighborhoods; that they do not need more tourists but “housing”; and “reverse” in city politics. Martí Cusó from the Gòtic neighborhood association recalls that in the neighborhood “there are more tourist beds than residents” and that it cannot be allowed to “expel more of the population and put neighborhood life at risk.” “Opening the ban is going against common sense and defending the interests of a few who benefit to the detriment of life in the neighborhoods.”
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In the Dreta del Eixample, which corresponds to the Sagrada Familia area, Jaume Artigues remembers that in the neighborhood there are 43,000 residents and 29,000 tourist beds: “You cannot grow more, we will oppose it, it is outrageous, the saturation of public space It is unsustainable.” Artigues believes that legally “it is not viable, when the PEUAT limits the number of tourist beds in the city based on data.” And in Poblenou, with the double hat of the neighborhood association and member of the board of the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Barcelona (FAVB), Joan Maria Soler is indignant: “There was a need to consolidate the minimums that had been achieved so as not to “We had doubts that the City Council would commit to the reduction we requested, but at least that they would maintain containment and not back down.” “It is very worrying that this exquisite sensitivity towards influential economic sectors is not reflected in the daily lives of Barcelonans,” laments Soler.
At the city level, the Assembly of Neighborhoods for Tourism Degrowth (ABDT), Dani Pardo sees the possibility of opening the tap to new hotel beds “an attack against the city, a flight forward and governing with the lobbies.” “The rejection is absolute, we will do everything possible to stop this nonsense, on the street and in the courts. Increasing the number of places means increasing the potential for tourist activity and its weight in the city, making it more dependent. In a city that already suffers impacts at all levels: expulsion of neighbors, pollution, loss of daily commerce, overcrowding of space and public transport and precarious employment.
From the Restoration Guild, its director, Roger Pallarols, sees the agreement as “good news, because the policy of obstacles and sickening against the main economic actors that provide employment, prosperity and opportunities was wrong.” And on behalf of Barcelona Oberta, which represents merchants in the most central areas, Gabriel Jené, is “totally in favor of the measure.” Converting “unique buildings into hotels allows for the implementation of higher category establishments that attract demand for great added value, which will help the much-needed economic and commercial reactivation of the center.”
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