The Valencia Vice President and Regional Minister for Equality and Inclusive Policies, Mónica Oltra, and the Second Vice President and Regional Minister for Housing and Bioclimatic Architecture, Héctor Illueca, have presented the Neighbourhood Law of the Valencian Community, a new regulatory framework with a strategic view to promote a process rehabilitation, regeneration and revitalisation of degraded urban environments.
The main objectives of the new legal tool are to undertake actions to care for and improve the living conditions of the population residing in these neighbourhoods, with special attention to the most vulnerable groups (single-parent households, the elderly, unemployed youth, migrant population, etc.).
As well as addressing the deficits in urban matters (degradation of public space, accessibility difficulties, lack of green areas, obsolescence, etc.), in the provision of services, in the quality of housing and the lack of facilities, that affect some neighbourhoods suffer, with the consequent effects on the dynamics of residential segregation and social inequality.
In addition, it aims to strengthen associative life and civic initiatives in the affected neighbourhoods in order to empower the population and encourage their involvement in projects to improve the provisions of the neighbourhoods and the living conditions.
For Mónica Oltra, this law “is the reflection of a society that demands a change in the city model, where to live and coexist. Where to grow and belong” for which it is essential that they have “more green spaces, improve the energy efficiency of buildings and homes, connecting neighbourhoods, having cultural and sports facilities, promoting energy and food sovereignty, favouring local businesses, life in the streets and public spaces”.
For this reason, she has highlighted the need to “rethink both the most degraded neighbourhoods and the most consolidated neighbourhoods and, as happens with other rights, work for the right to housing, but also for the right to coexistence and to live in worthy conditions.”
In this sense, Oltra has highlighted that the future Neighbourhood Law addresses the aging of the housing stock, will speed up the regeneration of closed buildings and will combat social inequality, because “today we know that economic inequality has more to do with the district postcard than with any other variable and for this reason, from this law we have to redistribute the opportunities”.
“We have to make it possible for people of different conditions to live together everywhere”, which translates into making it easier for “everyone to live in any neighbourhood through formulas for affordable housing and that any neighbourhood is decent to live in, enabling services, safe spaces and homes”, she stated.
In short, with this rule the Regional Government aims to “address the aging of the housing stock and combat social inequality”, concluded Oltra.
For his part, Héctor Illueca referred to the importance of incorporating integration and equity in cities, which implies -he said- “promoting urbanism thought of globally, coordinating social, economic and environmental strategies, within the of authentic governance where civil society is the protagonist.
“The neighbourhood law will be a legal tool aimed at promoting compliance with the duty of public institutions to intervene to reverse situations of inequality and vulnerability that occur in the territories.”
Likewise, the second vice-president has emphasised how the process of growth and development of urban environments has been characterised by “a lack of homogeneity that has given rise to enclaves that can be classified as vulnerable”.
Given this, it becomes evident “the need to enable a regulatory framework that facilitates the deployment of public policies aimed at continuing to expand the right to decent housing and the consolidation of cities as integrating spaces that facilitate the daily life of everyone”.
Illueca has concluded by stating that “with this claim, the preliminary draft of the neighbourhood law has been designed, a necessary legal framework because urban rehabilitation, regeneration and revitalisation are priorities in the urban strategies of the Valencian municipalities, articulating mechanisms of inter-administrative cooperation between the Generalitat and local entities, which will allow us to give a boost to rehabilitation policies at levels comparable to our European partners”.
The general director of Quality, Rehabilitation and Energy Efficiency, Alberto Rubio, has been in charge of opening the event and detailing the importance that the new law acquires in the context of the Next Generation European funds.
As he explained, “an unprecedented opportunity is opening up to promote new instruments for urban regeneration and revitalisation.
Faced with this situation, the Neighbourhood Law will allow the instrumentation of adequate measures that make it possible to prevent the social and health processes that originate its current destructuring, the attention to its care demand, the promotion of resources.
The preliminary draft of the Neighbourhood Law will be exposed to public information until June 6, and it establishes the general legal framework for the implementation of the processes, with an approach that goes beyond the strictly physical aspects, identifiable with building rehabilitation in terms of architecture, acquiring a plural dimension that pursues social cohesion, sustainability and citizen participation in an orderly urban environment.
