Consulta del Soterrament de Sant Feliu
Consulta popular no referendària
About this process
This process belongs to Soterrament
The burying of the road has been a historical claim in Sant Feliu de Llobregat since the recovery of democracy. With the burial it will be possible to sew neighborhoods, create new axes between city streets and break the architectural barriers that currently exist.
Burying has been a social demand throughout history for safety reasons and to put an end to the high danger involved in crossing the level crossing, as shown by the numerous fatal accidents that have occurred in Sant Feliu throughout the history. About 10,000 people cross the level crossing on foot every day.
Also because the burial will allow the improvement of the frequencies of the R1 and R4 Cercanías de Barcelona lines from L'Hospitalet de Llobregat and to Sant Vicenç de Calders, and will improve the mobility of people and vehicles, facilitate the reduction of pollution acoustic and environmental; and it will favor the social cohesion of the city. Now, the level crossing remains closed for almost 50 minutes of every hour, as about 150 trains circulate on the railway line every day. Finally, in June the countdown of the 44 months of works of this project 100% financed by the State began.
Thus, after more than 40 years of institutional and civic struggle, Sant Feliu can finally begin to work on its future without the wound opened by the train tracks.
On January 17, 2018, the then Minister of Development, Íñigo de la Serna, announced the completion of the burial, a milestone claimed by the city since the 1980s. The works would be fully financed by the State Government.
After this announcement, the Unitary Submission of the Burying was established, made up of a representative from each municipal group, who valued that Santfeliuenses and Santfeliuenses should have a decisive role in defining the Sant Feliu of the future.
For this reason, a process of participation was proposed, so that citizens could decide what they wanted to happen to the space freed by the roads. In parallel, it was also agreed that the buried space would be screened through an International Ideas Contest that would take into account these citizen wishes and finally a decision was reached that the process would culminate with an open Consultation to all registered people over 16 years of age. in Sant Feliu.
Likewise, the Burial Office was created, with the objective of articulating the mechanisms of institutional relationship, coordination and services related to the burial works, citizen information and projection of the transformation of the city.
The City Council opted for a city model where residents were increasingly active in making decisions related to the day-to-day life of the city, and participation was considered a great tool that made it possible to value desires , requests and interests of citizens.
Thus, the commitment to a participatory model and institutional unity have been key elements to reach the current scenario, since thanks to the agreement between the different municipal groups it has been possible to provide citizens with tools to be able to decide the future of Sant Feliu.
In this sense, a process was carried out in September 2018 in which the requirements of citizens were defined to incorporate into the specifications of the International Ideas Competition for the urbanization of the surface and the transformation of the city.
Of the more than 50 activities carried out to collect citizen initiatives and proposals, 1,416 contributions were collected from almost two thousand participants. These proposals were collected, categorized and grouped. Subsequently, they were validated with the public through three sessions, in order to be able to elaborate the requirements that formed part of the bases of the International Urban Planning Contest.
On March 4, 2019, the bases of the international project competition for the new urban centrality space, resulting from the burial of the railroad tracks in Sant Feliu de Llobregat. On April 27, 2019, the deadline for the presentation of projects began, which ended on June 11, 2019.
Phase 3 of the aforementioned contest envisaged a non-referential popular consultation on the 3 finalist projects selected by the jury of experts, in order to choose the winning proposal, within the bidding process called. This vote would culminate the participation process linked to the urban transformation of the space freed by the roads.
The municipal plenary session of July 2019 approved an agreement to call a popular consultation related to this Tender, which was rendered ineffective as the corresponding decree of convocation was not formalized and provided for in the Municipal Participation and Collaboration Regulations.
As a cause of the pandemic produced by COVID-19, the effective start of the underground works of the tracks by ADIF suffered a considerable delay in the calendar, having signed the act of reconsideration of the same on June 21 of 2021. The members of the Burial Committee had requested on several occasions the possibility of delaying the celebration of the popular consultation linked to the international contest, once ADIF had proceeded to the effective start of the works.
The municipal plenary session, in a session held on July 29, 2021, expressed the political will to start the non-referential popular consultation process so that the citizens of Sant Feliu de Llobregat could exercise their right to decide the project for the new space of urban centrality, resulting from the burying of the railroad tracks, as well as the way of preserving the memory of the original station.
The Decree to call the popular consultation was signed on September 22, and later, on September 28, it was published in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat of Catalonia, as established in article 12.2 of the law on popular consultations .
Once this procedure has been carried out and the consultation has been held, the Jury of experts would name the winning proposal, the second and third prizes, in accordance with the functions that are attributed to it in the bases of the international project competition.
In the same sense, clause 10 of the regulatory bases of the project competition determines that a minimum citizen participation of 100 citizens is established, being that at least a quarter of these will have to be people who reside in one of the neighborhoods affected by the underground works. In the same clause, it is determined that the question that is going to be submitted to the public for guidance with the following wording: "In your opinion, which of the following projects you consider most appropriate for the new urban centrality space resulting from the underground railway in Sant Feliu de Llobregat ”.
At the same time, the works of the new construction project prepared by ADIF were incompatible with the maintenance of the current station building. In addition, its transfer was impossible due to the materials with which it was built.
For this reason, the Sant Feliu City Council has worked to preserve the historical memory of the building, in collaboration with the heritage department of the Barcelona City Council; by making samples of the construction material and the decorative elements of the building, in order to carry out a controlled dismantling and thus be able to remove the elements that are considered to have patrimonial value and allow their subsequent relocation.
From this casuistry, a citizen platform was born that called for the preservation of the memory of the station building from different perspectives. Thus, as a result of this citizen claim, the municipal plenary approved in July 2021 to include a second question in the consultation on the preservation of the station's memory.
Share: