Barcelona City Council continues working on the expansion of the public housing stock in the city. In those areas of the city where there is less public land available, exercising the right of first refusal and pre-emptive rights is key to adding public housing and preventing speculation. Through the Barcelona Municipal Institute of Housing and Renovation, the city council has bought a building on Carrer Diputació, 48, in the Eixample district. The City Council and district representatives met with the local residents yesterday. The event was attended by the councillor for Housing and Rehabilitation, Lucía Martín, the manager of IMHAB, Gerard Capó, and the Eixample District and City councillors, Eduard Corbella and Pau Gonzàlez, respectively.
The property has 31 dwellings distributed over the six floors, attic and upper attic that form the building. The ground floor also has two offices. Of these dwellings, eight are currently unoccupied, as is one of the offices.
More than 150 properties acquired in the Eixample
This operation is part of the strategy to expand the public housing stock and protect local residents from speculation and gentrification processes in the city. From June 2015 to date, with the purchase of the building on Carrer Diputació, a total of 144 dwellings have been acquired in the district from eight entire properties. Of these eight, five have been acquired in the last year. With these actions, the City Council has invested around 38 million euros in total in purchases in the District since 2015, with an average of €264,469.75 per dwelling approximately. Thus, the Eixample, one of the most densely populated districts in the city and with the least amount of public land available to build new protected housing, surpasses one hundred dwellings and represents around 14% of the total dwellings acquired in Barcelona.
In global terms, from June 2015 to December 2021, a total of 1,042 dwellings were acquired in the city, from a total of 226 individually acquired dwellings and 816 dwellings from 37 entire properties. Of these, last year 377 came from the acquisition of 19 individual dwellings and 358 dwellings from 12 entire properties that were acquired.