The owner of the land where the Carabanchel Press Colony arch is located is ready to donate as well as municipal property in exchange for stopping the payment of the IBI.
This is how the socialist spokesperson for town planning at Madrid City Hall, Antonio Giraldo, summed it up within the committee for works, public facilities and housing. “You could say (the bow) doesn’t belong to anyone. It is located on a public road, however, there is a small part which falls on private land, owned by an individual. In his writings, there is no Colony arch even though for many years he has been paying the IBI for this building,” explained the advisor.
He owner of this land “is completely willing and has shown its willingness to make the corresponding transfer to Madrid City Hall with one condition, to stop paying this IBI which, according to it, does not correspond to them.”
The Carabanchel Press Colony was built between 1913 and 1916 based on the idea of around fifty journalists and writers to create a retirement area. The first stone was laid by Alfonso XIII and suffered damage from the civil war. Today there are no longer many of the small houses that were part of its layout and, in Giraldo’s words, it is in “a state of conservation that can clearly be improved in many cases”.
The socialist demanded an intervention by the Town Hall in the entrance arch to the historic district, its most characteristic element, a property which presents an “administrative problem” because “although it is on the public road, it does not is not inventoried in reality. domain.” of the municipal council.
“You could say he doesn’t belong to anyone. It is located on a public road, however, there is a small part which falls on private land, owned by an individual. In his writings there is no arch of the Colony, even though for many years he has been paying the IBI for this building,” explained Antonio Giraldo.
The PSOE requested, as it also did in 2022 during the plenary session of Carabanchel, that the arc of the Colonia de la Prensa be declared an Asset of Cultural Interest. “We are pleased to have reached a consensus two weeks ago at the Municipal Council in which all groups voted in favor so that the Municipality can initiate a domain file and become the owner of this property in order to hand it over to its structural problems,” added the socialist councilor.
The delegate of Works and Equipment, Paloma García Romero, assured that the government team has a clear interest in the rehabilitation of historic settlements, emphasizing that in Carabanchel, “until now, the area has not received any proposals for process a heritage file for the acquisition of the arch of the Colonia de la Prensa.
The only information they have dates back to July 2022, when interest was expressed in integrating the arch into municipal heritage. The municipality sent an informative note to the district highlighting a series of necessary questions to be resolved before processing any real estate acquisition file, such as cadastral regularization or clarification of the urban situation.
