It is the story of the fight of David against Goliath, of an organized citizenry against political and bureaucratic power with all its resources. This is how the great achievements of the neighborhood movement for the city of Valencia were written, whose resistance managed to stop speculative or simply predatory projects such as the urbanization of El Saler, the construction of a highway in the old Túria canal. or the destruction of the urban area of Cabanyal, to give some of the most significant examples.
The neighborhood movement grouped under the motto “El llit del Túria és nostre i el volem verd” appeared in the 1970s with the aim of stopping the project of the Franco regime by which, after the catastrophic floods of 1957 and the subsequent diversion of the To the south of Valencia, it was decided to build a highway on the old riverbed that runs through the city.
The strong response of Valencian civil society, led by the Coordinadora d’Associacions de Veïns, managed to finally exclude the execution of the road coinciding with the start of the transition and this at the beginning of the 80s, with the socialist Ricard Pérez Casado. As mayor, the neighborhood’s request to create the Turia Garden was met.
Decades later, a new neighborhood battle in preparation, with a very similar context, saved and transformed this motto into a war cry: “The corridor is ours and the green volemn”, warn the neighborhoods of the south of the city to the PP government team. . and Vox led by the mayor, María José Catalá.
Citizen mobilization has only just begun and, in just one week, it has already collected more than 26,000 signatures as part of the campaign launched on the Change.org platform in which the neighborhood associations of Malilla, Sant Vicent Màrtir Bulevar Sud (Creu Coberta), La Torre, La Roqueta, Patraix, Arrancapins-Petxina, Favara, Cuidem La Raïosa, Favara, Sant Isidre, AVV Sant Marcel.lí, Abastos-Finca Roja, Tres Forques, Benimaclet, Saïdía, the Consell de la Joventut de València and the Federació d’Associations Veïnals de València. A mobilization that goes beyond the territories concerned, which means that the neighborhood movement considers it as a city project.
Catalá lit the spark of this fire when at the beginning of last week he announced his resignation from the Green Leaf strategy, the winning project of a competition of ideas promoted during the last legislature to redevelop all the lands which will be released after the underground works. rail access to the south of València and even the entire urban fabric adjacent to the V-30 up to the industrial zone of Vara de Quart.
This project essentially envisaged the creation of a green pedestrian corridor connecting the neighborhoods of Arrancapins, Russafa, La Raiosa, Malilla, Creu Coberta, Sant Marcel·lí, Camí Reial, Sant Isidre and Vara de Quart, generating a space with spaces green spaces that extend into neighborhoods. The project minimized roads for motorized traffic and included newly built housing, the recovery of existing industrial heritage, cycle paths, the connection by cross roads of the two parts historically separated by the railway and pedestrian paths.
Catalá, however, plans to recover the 2011 project of landscape designer Kathryn Gustafson, winner of the Central Park ideas competition, which envisages the creation of a garden path. Although the initial project envisages four traffic lanes for motorized traffic (two in each direction), Catalá recently assured, after meeting with Gustafson herself, that the project was being redefined and would increase the green spaces planned, but without giving up the roads: “We will “rethink to reduce the road plan and respect the passage of public transport and the access of the neighborhood in the area with the aim of generating spaces for the celebration of cultural events in the open air.
The neighbors, however, insist on defending the green corridor without roads for traffic, where there is now no more car traffic because of the passage of trains. This is what they also told Gustafson, taking advantage of his visit to Central Park with the College of Architects: “He told us that we are at the same point, that he thinks like us and that he also sees that the future transformation of this city must involve a more sustainable and greener transformation. This is why it is important that we take this dialogue seriously. He also thanked us for coming to demand improvements for the city,” explained the neighborhood spokesperson who spoke with the landscaper.
After postponing a first meeting with the neighborhood entities scheduled for this week, the government team, which seems uncomfortable and does not hide its concern about the neighborhood’s response, plans to open a cycle of dialogue with all in the coming days to try to bring closer postures.
Gustafson, in favor of no cars according to the PSPV
Socialist spokesperson Borja Sanjuan denounced this Friday “the lies and lies of María José Catalá to justify her decision to introduce four lanes of private traffic in the green corridor” and regretted that she tried to use the figure of the prestigious landscaper Kathryn Gustafson to “hide their intention to convert the roads that the government of Pedro Sánchez is burying into an urban highway.”
“As he knows that there is no one in his senses or in his century who defends that it is better to have four lanes than a large green corridor in a city which already made this decision four decades ago with the river, he hides that what this professional considers international is that it is not necessary for private vehicles to pass through this part of the city, as he openly expressed during a conference that he gave to the College of Architects,” he said. In fact, Gustafson herself praised the public for her pedestrianization project around the Eiffel Tower, which prevented access for any car, “even. taxis.”
The socialist leader also criticized the PP and Catalá for not having taken into account the rejection of his project “which was expressed by neighborhood associations and the more than 25,000 people who voted against the construction of four lanes in a space which was going to be entirely green and pedestrian; “They despise citizens, postpone a meeting so as not to listen to what they want and it’s a Green Corridor without cars.”
Compromís describes the PP project as an “event”
The municipal councilor of Compromís, Giuseppe Grezzi, regretted that María José Catalá “no longer knows what to do to justify her idea of making an avenue where the neighbors want the green corridor of García Lorca and now she has sent Juan Carlos Caballero to act as a liar and inventing that the Compromís project did not have reports from the firefighters.
According to Grezzi, “as everyone knows, all actions initiated by City Hall technicians, those of today and those of before, who are the same, take into account the criteria and needs of all municipal services , and do not go beyond the reporting of these services to the stage immediately preceding their approval. And this park, “whose Sustainable Mobility was designed from the start taking into account all the criteria and technical requirements required by the Police and Fire Brigade, is no exception; But neither the García Lorca de Compromís park has a report from the firefighters, nor the avenue with pipican that Catalá wants to build in its place, because they are not yet at that phase.
