Today will not be a day like any other in Madrid. This Tuesday, Operation Campamento will officially be born, a project that has taken about 30 years to become a reality and that finally has a clear horizon, with close collaboration between the Ministry of Housing and the Madrid City Council, whose minister, Isabel Rodríguez, described yesterday as “very positive”, both from a political and technical point of view.
From the Ministry of Housing, they highlight this “complicity” with the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and at the same time issue a warning to the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso: “The agreement is with the Madrid City Council. Council already “The Community of Madrid will be responsible for the profits in the field of the operation and what we hope is that it does not slow down the wheel, that it does not put obstacles or unnecessary impediments.” Sources from the Ministry affirm that the Community has sufficient powers to “slow down” the deadlines and stop the project.
Operation Campamento will receive the green light today at the plenary session of the Madrid City Council, which will pave the way for the construction of 10,700 homes that, according to sources from the Ministry of Housing, will be “decent and affordable, below market price.” And they will be one hundred percent so, they emphasize, although only “at least” 60 percent will be officially protected. The government will ensure that the prices of the remaining 40 percent do not skyrocket: “We own the land.”
Concretely, the municipal plenary session will probably agree to examine the urban management initiative presented by Sepes (Public Entity of Land Enterprise). The goal now is that “the Campamento operation is never again paralyzed”. “By the end of next year, we hope to be able to carry out the work of the operation”, according to the ministry’s forecasts. From now on, no one dares to guess when the first families will be able to be seen in the houses that will be built in the area. But they believe that by the end of the legislature, in 2027, the first residential buildings will already be built.
97.729 percent of the land in Operation Campamento belongs to Sepes and the government’s commitment is that it will be used for “public service”, and that is why they guarantee that all the houses will be “affordable”, since there is no desire to “get rich” from its sale, according to sources from the ministry. The remaining 2,271 percent belong to other owners (Madrid City Council and private owners). In total, there are 2.1 million square meters of land available, of which 1.5 million will be for public facilities and green spaces, and the remaining 500,000 square meters will be for residential use for homes.
The number of homes that will be for sale or rent has not been set, but they must all be “affordable, to achieve a socially balanced neighborhood,” Housing insists. What the government wants is for rental housing, which is priced “well below the market,” to be as high as possible.
The Campamento exploitation project is accompanied by an agreement for the burying of the A-5, which will eventually reach Avenida de la Aviación, as requested by the neighbors. The ministry has agreed to pay 25 percent of the cost of the burial, up to a limit of 146 million euros. The underground project, which has a very tight deadline, should be ready in 30 months.
Minister Isabel Rodríguez welcomed the “formal unlocking” of the operation that will take place today in Cibeles and highlighted the “very important” symbols hidden behind this project, since in “times of many conflicts and wars, military spaces” will now be home to thousands of people once this operation is completed.
