With the aim of increasing the city’s social housing stock and speeding up its construction, Barcelona City Council, through the Municipal Institute for Housing and Renovation (IMHAB), has launched a public tender for three municipal plots in the Marina del Prat Vermell and Diagonal Mar i el Front Marítim del Poblenou neighbourhoods. The winning companies will be responsible for the promotion, construction and management of 350 protected housing units for affordable rent.

This new tender is a step forward and an example of the City Council’s firm commitment to guaranteeing the right to decent housing. The measure is part of the principle of co-responsibility promoted by Pla Viure, the new municipal strategic plan that coordinates and optimises housing policies. This roadmap works with and for everyone to guarantee the right to housing, with an approach based on sustainability and the well-being of citizens.

Encouraging operator diversification

The City Council has launched an open competition for private entities, with or without a profit motive, to promote the construction of social housing through public-private collaboration. Proposals will be evaluated according to criteria of social support, architectural quality, sustainability and industrialisation, with priority given to carbon footprint reduction and energy efficiency. There are also plans to set up a social commission between the parties involved to monitor conflicts, late payments or misuse of the housing. Interested organisations have 60 working days to submit their proposals.

The Council will transfer the surface rights of three municipal plots to the successful bidders for a period of 75 years, extendable to 90 years. The land will remain in the ownership of the municipality and at the end of the period, the Council will take back the buildings constructed. Construction is expected to start in 2027.

This strategy of accelerating the construction of housing is in line with other measures, such as the renewal of the ESAL Agreement, which also seeks collaboration between entities, in this case from the third sector, with the aim of increasing affordable rentals in the city.

350 new social housing homes

The new units will be allocated to affordable rental housing, with a maximum price set by the general social housing scheme, currently set at 10.36 euros/m². The allocation will be managed by the Barcelona Housing Consortium, among the people registered in the city’s Social Housing Register.

The developments will be built on two plots of land in the Marina del Prat Vermell neighbourhood, in the Sants-Montjuïc district, and on one plot in the Diagonal Mar i el Front Marítim del Poblenou neighbourhood, in the Sant Martí district:

• Acer Street, 2: 43 flats
• Ascó Street, 17: 68 flats
• Llull Street, 355: 240 flats

This ambitious project is part of the Pla Viure and the future Strategic Housing Plan, which aims to coordinate and optimise all municipal housing activities to make them more effective. By 2027, the keys will be handed over to 3,300 social housing homes, another 2,000 will be under construction and the procedures for starting the construction of 10,000 protected housing units on municipal land will have been completed.