The Barcelona City Council, through the Municipal Institute of Housing and Renovation, signed the deed of incorporation of the right of superficies on two properties on Via Augusta in favor of the cooperative ‘Sostre Cívic’, the objective of which is for the cooperative to develop the first senior housing project in Barcelona, with people from the Can 70 motor group. The objective is for the cooperative to develop the first senior cohousing project in Barcelona, with people from the Can 70 motor group. The transfer of the municipal land is part of the ESAL Agreement, which promotes cooperative housing in the city.
The transfer of this space to Sostre Cívic is specifically intended for the Can 70 project, a group of about 20 people, mostly women, who are between 55 and 70 years old, and who since 2015 have been working and debating on the model of coexistence they want, and how they want to live and grow old in community. In this sense, the signing of the surface right allows Can 70 to become, once built, the first senior cooperative housing in Barcelona and the first on public land in Catalonia and throughout Spain.
For practical purposes, the signature, formalized at the Barcelona City Hall, allows the successful bidder to enjoy the right to use the site for 99 years, assuming the cost of the construction of the building. As they are classified as subsidized housing, the maximum rent for each cohabitation unit can be limited.
The signing of this agreement follows the path of the first surface rights signed by the City Council within the framework of the ESAL Agreement, in this case for the housing cooperatives ‘Abril’ and ‘La Domèstika’, which took place last August 2022.
Development of the ESAL Agreement
Signed in 2020 between the City Council and the main federations of cooperatives and social housing foundations, the ESAL Agreement is a pioneering mechanism for cooperation with the third sector, in which public land is assigned to non-profit organizations and the transfer of land. This promotes the construction and renovation of subsidized housing for rental and transfer of the right of use (cohousing) through the constitution of surface rights. This is a tool that boosts the growth of the public housing stock, while diversifying the range of agents involved.
The Agreement is therefore an alliance between the Barcelona City Council and the Federació de Cooperatives d’Habitatges de Catalunya (FCHC), the Coordinadora de Fundacions d’Habitatge Social (Cohabitac), the Associació Xarxa d’Economia Solidària (XES) and the Associació de Gestors de Polítiques Socials d’Habitatge de Catalunya (GHS).