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Reference Date: 26-07-1998
Experience selected in the 1998 Dubai Award for Best Practice, and catalogued as BEST .
(
Best Practices Database.)
País/Country: Spain
United Nations Region: Europe
Ecological region: Coastal
Activity: City / Town
Partnerships: Local government. Foundation. Non-governmental
organisation (NGO)
Themes = Housing: access to housing finance; affordable
housing; homelessness. Urban Governance: metro/urban-wide
government; partnership development; public administration and
management; resource mobilization. Urban and Regional Planning:
capital investment programming; community-based planning;
cultural heritage conservation; metro/urban-wide planning; urban
renewal
Main contact:
Vicente Álvarez Areces
Departamento de Medio Ambiente, Town Hall of Gijón
Plaza Mayor, 1
33201 Gijón (Asturias)
Spain
Tel: +98-518 11 43
Fax: +98-518 11 17
E-mail: aytogijon@airastur.es
http://www.ayto-gijon.es
Partner:
Carlos Zapico Acebal
Town Hall of Gijón. (Local government)
Plaza Mayor, 1
33201 Gijón (Asturias)
Spain
Tel: +98-518 11 43
Fax: +98-518 11 17
E-mail: aytogijon@airastur.es
http://www.ayto-gijon.es
Political support
Partner:
Teresa Ordíz Asenjo
Fundación Servicios Sociales. (Foundation)
Salamanca, 1
33201 Gijón
Asturias
Spain
Tel: +34-985 13 70 89
Fax: +34-985 13 74 44
E-mail: fmss@airastur.es
fmss@airastur.es Administrative support
Partner:
José María Mori Montero
Gijon, a town for all. (Non-governmental organisation)
Vega de Abajo, s/n
33391 Gijón
Asturias
Spain
Tel: +34-985 13 70 89
Fax: +34-985 13 74 44
E-mail: ucpt@mrbit.es
Social Work
Organización Nominadora
Marta García Nart
Comité Nacional Español
Paseo de la Castellana, 67
28071 Madrid
Spain
Tlf: +34-91 597 75 72
Fax: +34-91 597 86 04
E-mail: mgnart@mfom.es
The municipality of Gijón, situated in the centre of the Asturian
coast, has undergone drastic changes during the present century
as a result of the processes of industrialisation of the iron and
steel making and shipbuilding sectors and their subsequent
restructuring. These events have especially affected urban
development, totally lacking in planning, which has resulted in
chaotic spatial channelling of immigration.
The Town Council of Gijón and the Municipal Foundation for Social
Services assume the leadership role of all the social, political
and economic agents involved, establishing a context for this
initiative with the setting up of the Plan for the Eradication
of Shanty Towns in 1984, and the approval in 1985 of the General
Scheme of Town Planning.
Situation after and Sustainability.
The process of implanting the initiative has lead to:
Detailed knowledge of the situation before: Definition of the
habitability objectives by means of permanent actions.
A political decision to implant the initiative through concrete
plans: a Plan for the Eradication of Shanty Towns and a General
Scheme of Town Planning.
A set of sectorial plans from other governing bodies and their
funding, in conjunction with the objectives of the Municipal
Plan.
1. The situation before the commencement of the actions and general
outlines
The municipality of Gijón, situated in the centre of the Asturian
coast, occupies 182 km2 and has a population of 267,000
inhabitants, 90 % of which live in the town itself.
Throughout this century, Gijón has undergone drastic changes as
a result of the process of industrialisation, basically in the
iron and steel and shipbuilding sectors, and their posterior
restructuring. These events have especially affected urban
development and human settlements. The greatest demographic
expansion took place in the Sixties, with a population increase
of 112,000 inhabitants(1960 -1975), a consequence of which was
urban development totally lacking in planning, with the resulting
chaotic spatial channelling of immigration. Peripheral
neighbourhoods were created during this period without adequate
facilities or infrastructures and as a final reflection of
residential segregation, a number of shanty towns arose which
housed the most marginal sectors of immigrants and which were
established in the most socially and environmentally degraded
areas, in the vicinity of local industries.
Subsequently, due to the process of industrial restructuring at
the beginning of the Eighties, a new situation arose with highly
degraded areas situated within the urban framework which clashed
head-on with the parameters of habitability and quality of life
which the citizens of Gijón aspired to.
Thus, in the year 1972 we find that the first census of shanties
reached the figure of 600, with five thousand inhabitants,
distributed among seven neighbourhoods, and up until the decade
of the Eighties, a large part of the seafront was occupied by
railway, iron and steel making, shipbuilding and dockyard
installations in disuse or in the process of restructurisation,
as well as military installations in the Campa de Torres, Cerro
de Santa Catalina and Cabo de San Lorenzo.
As a consequence of the lack of town planning and the absence of
any kind of control, the town's wastewater were dumped into the
sea with absolutely no type of depuration and the quality of the
air did not fall within the established limits. This situation
impeded public use of the beaches and demanded action to improve
the quality of life in the town.
The solution to all these problems could not be undertaken
unilaterally by the Town Council of Gijón, the Regional and
Central Governments were obliged to intervene in their role as
owners of part of the land to be acted on urbanistically
and as promoters of sectorial plans (Housing Plans, Railway
Station Plans, Coastal Plans, Sanitation Plans) and as channelers
of the funds needed to undertake such far reaching actions. The
participation of social agents was also necessary through the
promotion of Neighbourhood Associations, Housing Co-operatives,
amongst which the non-governmental organisation "Gijón una ciudad
para todos" (Gijón, a town for all), created in 1970 for the
eradication of shanty towns, and the creation of the so-called
"Gestora de la Vivienda" (Housing Management Body) for
citizen participation in the processes of evaluation and study
of housing needs, stand out.
Previously, important steps had already been taken, such as the
collaboration of the Portuguese Government in the insertion of
the existing Portuguese colony in Gijón and the creation in 1982
of the figure of the "Controlador del chabolismo" (Shanty Town
Controller).
The Town Council of Gijón and the Municipal Foundation for Social
Services assumed the leadership role of all the social, political
and economic agents involved, establishing the context of this
initiative with the setting up in 1984 of the Plan for the
Eradication of Shanty Towns, and the approval in 1985 of the
General Scheme of Town Planning, key dates in the commencement
of the initiative: "Urban renewal and social insertion. An
opening of the town to the sea", the main basic aims of which
are:
2. Implantation of the initiative
Between the years 1970 and 1983, the NGO "Gijón, a town for all"
was created, with the collaboration of the Portuguese Government,
the census of shanties was carried out and the figure of the
"Shanty Town Controller" and the "Housing Management Body" were
created as starting points which turned out to be key elements
in the setting up of the Plan for the Eradication of Shanty Towns
(1984), which was further reinforced in 1989 by its integration
in the ll European programme "Fight against Poverty".
In the year 1985, the Town Council approved the General Scheme
for Town Planning. As part of its development, in the year 1989
the Special Plan for Inner-city Renewal SPIR of the old fishing
quarter of Cimadevilla and Rehabilitation of the Cerro (Headland)
de Santa Catalina (old military installations) was approved,
subsequently followed by approval of the SPIR of Moreda (old iron
and steel making installations), the SPIR of Arbeyal and the SPIR
of Poniente (old shipyards).
The process of implantation of the initiative may be summarised
in the following points:
The Coastal Pathway continues along the Beach of San Lorenzo, the
Rinconín Park, the Cervigón coastal path, the Park of the Cape
of San Lorenzo and the Eastern coastal path until the eastern
limits of the municipality at the Beach of La .ora.
Six thousand metres of Coastal Pathway have been built, another
six thousand metres are under construction, an Archaeological
Museum has been created in the Campa de Torres, a Railway
Museum has been created, 1,860 housing units have been built
(1,100 of which are housing co-operatives), the number of green
spaces in the town has doubled from 800,000 m2 in 1989 to
1,600,000 m2 in 1998, and 2,900,000 m2 of periurban green spaces
have been created. The wastewater generated by the inhabitants
and industries of town of Gijón have been channelled
by means of the corresponding sewage network, sewage plants and
off-shore sewage outfalls, these last installations being
presently under construction. These actions have been
complemented by active policies to reduce atmospheric pollution
by means of systematic monitoring of emissions and imissions,
with the installation of an automatic monitoring network, as a
result of which the quality of the air may be qualified as
admissible. At the same time, systems for the selective
collection of domestic solid waste has been implanted.
This initiative has lead to the integration of previously
marginal neighbourhoods without access to the sea into the urban
framework and the opening of the town to the sea along with an
increase in public spaces, green spaces, cultural and museum
offers in favour of the townAEs citizens and the elimination of
the housing shortage at the same time as fomenting
co-operativism.
3. Achieved Results
The success of the initiative is based on the capacity of the
Town Council of Gijón to channel and agglutinate the different
sectorial projects, assuming the leadership role in actions in
Gijón, achieving a new alignment and balanced development of the
town with regards to the sea, with higher levels of habitability,
and establishing a context for economic transformation.
Transferability
The following stand out as fundamental aspects which have lead
to the achievements of the initiative:
4. The experirnce in numbers
Financial Profile:
The execution of this initiative has meant the
participation of a wide range of institutional,
private and non-governmental organisations, of
which, due to the structure of the questionaire,
only the ones most directly involved have been
included. The total cost of the actions undertaken
was 35,600 million pesetas, comprehensively
distributed in the following way:
| 1998 Spanish Best Practices selected by the International Jury > http://habitat.aq.upm.es/bpes/onu98/bp432.en.html |