“It was considered the best proposal because it stands out in terms of design and concept, being the most complete and providing the best response to the criteria and objectives established in the specifications.” The evaluation of the jury which chose the Green Leaf strategy as the winner of the competition of ideas organized during the last quarter to redevelop all the land which will be freed after the underground works of the railway accesses to the south of Valencia justifies it as being the best of the three finalists. It is not in vain that they obtained 81 points, far from the 68 of the second ranked and the 36 of the third.
The jury, made up of members of associations of architects, engineers and heads of departments and architects from different delegations of the Town Hall, adds that “the proposal is suggestive in its overall design and its graphic representation, having as element notable the organization of the different spaces that the corridor crosses according to an arrangement which favors the renaturalization of the space” and specifies that “the design of the first section of the corridor which extends transversely, connecting through green corners with the urban fabric existing, is very attractive, expanding the garden space in residential areas.
Despite everything, with the renaturalization of Pérez Galdós and the Town Hall Square, this is the third major project promoted by the former left-wing team chaired by Joan Ribó and rejected by the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, of PP, who has always pretended to make decisions based on technical criteria and the will of neighborhood residents. Which is also not true in this case.
As former mayor Ribó recalled on his social networks, the Green Life strategy involved, generally speaking, the creation of a green corridor that connected 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 green areas that extend into the 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 assured on its social networks that the project is being redefined and updated: “The objective is that 70% of space is a green corridor, so it is wrong for a highway to be built. Public facilities, cycle paths and access to public and private transport will be taken into account.
Neighborhood rejection
Despite everything, the change of project gained the unanimous rejection both of the Federació d’Associacions Veïnals and of the entities of the districts concerned, which already promote the collection of signatures through a digital platform which in a few hours has collected more than 1,000 supports. The initiative is supported by the neighborhood associations of Malilla, Sant Vicent Màrtir Bulevar Sud (Creu Coberta), La Torre, La Roqueta, Patraix, Arrancapins-Petxina, Favara, Cuidem La Raïosa and Sant Isidre.
The Federation convened a working committee with neighborhood associations to address this issue, “with the aim of creating a large green corridor for this area of the city, just as the large Turia garden was created years ago in the old bed of the river. and added: “This problem links not only the southern districts, but the city as a whole. Even if it is true that these neighborhoods are the most affected, the green corridor must be a demand for the entire city. Valencia does not need more major avenues or more roads; “We want a modern, sustainable city, respectful of the environment and the health of its neighbors, and which really resembles what a European green capital should be.”
Rosa Jover, president of the Malilla neighborhood association, says she is opposed to the presence of vehicles “in a space where a large green corridor has been planned.” “We don’t see the need to put cars where there are railways and trains when it’s not necessary,” says Jover, who adds: “València is the green capital and we hoped that it would can become a lung of the city, because the corridor does not only concern the neighborhoods. Their opposition “is categorical with regard to the projects of the current government team, of which the neighbors have not, however, been directly informed”.
The president of Cuidem la Raiosa, Stefano Carlo, said: “We are diametrically opposed, like the rest of the neighborhood associations, to the change of project. We are moving from a 2024 project from a major Belgian urban planning studio which has already carried out work of a magnificent standard throughout Europe to a return to a model project from the last century. It is an insult to the neighbors and a manipulation that they are doing, because they are selling the reform that only covers Federico García Lorca Boulevard, which is a kilometer long as a green corridor, and in a second phase the stretch up to the EMT and cemetery garages. It is not necessary that there are cars in this kilometer that they want to develop when we have San Vicente Street, Malilla Road and Ausiàs March Avenue within a radius of 500 meters.
Francisco Marín, from Sant Marcel·lí, expresses his rejection of “a new boulevard full of cars for the southern zone” and comments that to the north there is “a nine-lane boulevard plus the two EMT lanes, at the west the cemetery wall and to the east, San Vicente street, with a busy road leading in and out of the city center”, which is why they oppose the reinforcement of traffic. It is for this reason that they “welcome that a green belt surrounds the district on its southernmost slope”.
PSPV Criticisms and Compromises
Compromís spokesperson Papi Robles accused Catalá of taking Valencia back to the past and losing historic opportunities to advance a greener, friendlier city: “Catalá is turning what could be a historic opportunity into a historic mistake . This takes Valencia back to the past with an outdated city model from 2007 when we are in 2024 where the situation of the city is totally different and it must be able to cope with the effects of climate change. The project planned by the Government of Compromís was an opportunity to reproduce another Turia garden in the city and to have a new green lung, in addition to bridging the historic gap between the southern and central neighborhoods. Catalá is once again using pretexts to introduce cars where they do not currently pass: he is replacing a green corridor with a four-lane avenue.”
For Robles, this is “another historic train that we are allowing to be lost by a government that is not up to the needs of the city, a government that goes against what important cities are doing of Europe”. Once again, “the mayor demonstrates her obsession with putting cars in the city and her sectarianism to distance herself from everything that Compromís has planned and which has made this city the European green capital,” he says.
Socialist spokesperson Borja Sanjuan presented the campaign “The PP steals the Green Corridor”, an initiative to mobilize residents of the southern neighborhoods of the city against the Catalan government’s attempt to “steal their more exciting future project”. an area that the PP has always considered the city’s dump, the place to put all the infrastructure that the rest of the neighborhoods don’t want, like the cemetery, the EMT garages or now a highway where there is no longer any cars; What the Catalá PP is doing is trying to steal the future of this city,” he emphasizes.
Sanjuan adds that in addition to this campaign which will be launched on social networks and through the website www.elppteroba.comthe Municipal Socialist Group will support the collection of signatures launched by residents of “neighborhoods affected by Catalá’s decision to transform what was going to be the new green river in the south of the city into a highway”.
