The Palau Robert in Barcelona hosted, last Thursday afternoon, November 24, the start of the Cooperative Housing Forum, whose slogan was “The cooperative way for the right to housing“. An event that took place from November 25 to 27 at the Ciutadella campus of the UPF and that had, as the epicenter of the debate, the cooperative housing in the transfer of use, a model that is progressively consolidating successfully in the city of Barcelona.
The opening debate, before the celebration of the three days that took place from Friday to Sunday, was attended by the Councilor for Housing and Rehabilitation of the Barcelona City Council, Lucía Martín. She was joined by the representative of the Catalan Tenants Union, Carme Arcarazo; the member of Coop57 and the cooperative housing movement, Maritza Buitrago; the president of the Metropolitan Housing Observatory of Barcelona, Carme Trilla; and the Executive Secretary of Condominiums, Ministry of Housing and Urbanism of Chile, Doris González.
All of them contributed their vision and experience to shape a story that had the right to decent and affordable housing as the spearhead of the debate. In this sense, the fight against the housing emergency and the regulation of the private housing market were some of the topics most analyzed by the speakers, who also emphasized the great importance of strengthening the public housing stock in Barcelona.
“There is still a long way to go, but once we finish the projected housing, in 2025, we will have doubled the public park that we found in 2015”, highlights Lucía Martín, who also listed and explained the different strategies that have been applied from the Barcelona City Council to attack, from all sides, a very significant problem in the city.
Faced with this scenario, the cooperative housing model in the cession of use takes importance, which among other advantages, “allows controlling the rental price, and thus face the reality that we have in recent years, where the growth of rental prices is well above the evolution of household incomes”, as highlighted by Carme Trilla.
Thus, this opening debate led to the start of the Forum, which featured various presentations, talks, and activities, as well as visits to cooperative housing projects in coexistence, such as La Borda, La Chalmeta, and Cirerers in the city of Barcelona, and four more located outside the city.
A space to learn about experiences, share good practices, and address current challenges around a model, co-housing, which proposes the recovery of community life with collective ownership and cooperative management of habitat with a democratic and participatory vision.