Special Urban Plan of the Gallecs territorial park - Catalunya

The Special Plan of the Natural Space of Gallecs aims to preserve the natural and landscape values of a rural area located 15 kilometers north of Barcelona in Spain. The 733 hectare area is located in a highly anthropized environment, with the main activity being agriculture, which is increasingly organic. This Plan was originally initiated in 1998 by the city council of Mollet del Vallès, and initially rejected by the Catalan Government. After a long process, a new Special Plan was drafted in 2009 by the Catalan government as a requirement by the existing 2005 Urban Master Plan of the ACTUR of Santa Maria de Gallecs, with the aim of establishing the necessary conditions and measures to regulate the urban planning of land uses and their activities. However, the Special Plan is still pending approval. The overarching goal of the Special Plan is (1) to preserve, revitalize and make the area's agricultural, natural, social and landscape values compatible, (2) to establish the basic norms for regulating the land, the uses and activities and the existing buildings, and (3) to fix the management instruments of the agrarian space. Management measures include the regulation of paths and roads, water, agriculture, and forestry. The land to which the Plan applies is owned by the Catalan Land Institute (Institut Català del Sòl), a regional public administration, which maintains an annual collaboration agreement with the Consorci de Gallecs (Consortium of Gallecs) for the management and maintenance of the space. The Consorci de Gallecs is a public organization comprised by regional institutions such as the Generalitat de Catalunya and several city councils.

Overview

Type of instrument:

Legislative, regulatory and strategic instruments›Dedicated strategy, plan, or law

Challenges addressed

Ecologic connectivity
Soil quality
Watershed restoration/water quality
Nature appropriation / stewardship
Reconnection to the biosphere / environmental education
Human health, comfort and well-being

Consideration of nature-based solutions:

The Plan aims to convert the Gallecs area into a sustainable space by ensuring a balance between its environmental, social and economic values. It has three main strategic lines: a) the management of public use by facilitating the accessibility of citizens to the space, the management of its leisure spaces, and the network of hiking paths; b) the preservation of ecological, landscape and cultural values by the recovery and improvement of the landscape, the enhancement of the agricultural and natural values and the regulation of the uses, activities and actions allowed with a special emphasis on the hydrographic network and the agroforestry mosaic; c) the socio-economic viability of its territory by promoting the economic autonomy of the area through the exploitation of its productive resources, which focus on the use of agricultural land and the development of activities related to the purposes of the park. More specifically, the Plan describes a high amount of actions that will be done to condition the space, as well as provide the park with basic services for its proper functioning. The actions are related with different scopes such as a) the regulation of paths and roads; b) water regulation; c) agriculture regulation; d) forestry regulation; e) equipment regulations; and f) demolition of buildings out of order; g) services and facilities; and h) furniture and signage.

Targeted (peri-)urban areas:

Allotments, community gardens or agricultural areas

Blue areas

Good practice characteristics:

Support multifunctional NBS

Sustainable in the long-term

Locally appropriate

Potential to be replicated / upscaled

Innovative

Governance

Non-governmental actor(s)

Initiating body:

Public sector institution (e.g. school or hospital)

Details about how the instrument was designed:

The Ministry of Housing under Franco's dictatorship expropriated a large rural area of 1,500 hectares in 1971, distributed between seven municipalities of the Vallès Occidental and Oriental (Mollet del Vallès, Parets del Vallès, Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, Palau-solità i Plegamans, Lliçà de Vall, Montcada i Reixac and Polinyà). This action resulted in the building of a city of 130,000 inhabitants in response to the congestion in the city of Barcelona. The area that is currently Gallecs (733ha) was located in the middle of this expropriated territory. As a response, the Commission for the Defense of Gallecs was created in 1997 comprised of community-based organisations like hiking groups, farmers and inhabitants of the affected villages. Since then, Gallecs has been the scene of a long struggle to achieve its preservation. In the early 1980s, there were more than a hundred of environmental "squatters" who lived in houses (masies) of the area and played an important role in defending Gallecs. Despite the social and the City Councils demands to include Gallecs within the Special Plan of Natural Interest (Pla Especial d'Interès Natural, PEIN), it was not included. One of the city councils that led its protection was Mollet del Vallès, which approved an occasional modification of the PGOM and a Special Plan for the protection of Gallecs in 1998. However, the Catalan government denied the modification and the Special Plan. It was not until 20 October 2009 that the Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan government) approved the inclusion of Gallecs in the Special Plan of Natural Interest (Decret 156/2009). As a result of this inclusion and due to the requirements of the existing Urban Master Plan of the ACTUR of Santa Maria de Gallecs, the Catalan government started to draft a Special Urban Plan for the Gallecs territorial park in 2009. The final Special Urban Plan is still pending approval.

Targeted actors:

Public sector institution (e.g. school or hospital)

Private: household, real estate developer, business , financial

Citizens or community groups (CBOs), NGOs

Details about the implementation:

The government body of the Gallecs area is the Consortium of the Park of Natural Interest Space of Gallecs (Corsorci del Parc de l’Espai d’Interès Natural de Gallecs), a public institution which is comprised of regional institutions such as the Catalan government through its former Departments of Territory and Sustainability, Agriculture, Livestock, Fishing, Food and the Environment, and Incasòl, and several municipalities such as Mollet del Vallès, Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, Palau-solità i Plegamans, Parets del Vallès, Lliçà de Vall and Montcada i Reixac. Following their statutes, the governing bodies of the Consortium are its Plenary Council (Consell Plenari); the presidency and the vice-presidencies; the Executive Committee; and the Management (Gerència). The Plenary Council is the superior body of the Consortium and it is composed by representatives of all the public administrations that belong to the Consorci. The president is the Councillor of the Territorial Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the vicepresidencies are assumed by the mayors of specific City Councils. The Executive Committee is the collective ordinary governing body of the Consortium and it is composed by nine members. The Management is appointed by the Plenary Council at the proposal of the Presidency and falls to a person professionally qualified to exercise this position, which is considered as a public senior management personnel. There are other organisations that contribute to the implementation of the instrument such as the Agroecological Association of Gallecs established in 2008, comprised of farmers and families who live and work in the rural area. They contribute by, amongst other activities, develop environmental education activities such as promoting the values of organic agriculture, biodiversity and water management. They further contributed to the elaboration of the Environmental Education Plan together with other social entities and the Consorci of Gallecs.

How did the government support the instrument?:

The Catalan government (Generalitat de Catalunya) initially did not support the protection of the Gallecs area, rejecting several initiatives led by the City Council of Mollet del Vallès. In 1999, the Councilor of Territorial Policies and Public Works of the Catalan government refused the final approvals for the specific modification of Mollet del Vallès in the area of Gallecs and the Special Protection Plan for the Gallecs area. The Mollet del Vallès City Council brought an administrative appeal against the two agreements. In October 2000, the city councils of Mollet del Vallès and Parets del Vallès set up the Consortium of the Rural Area of Gallecs with the aim of initiating the revitalization of the agriculture, forestry, public use and environmental education of the area. In October 2004, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the municipalities in the area agreed to protect the central area of Gallecs with the initial approval of the ACTUR Urban Master Plan (Pla Director Urbanístic) of Santa Maria de Gallecs. The Urban Master Plan was definitively approved in 2005 with the aim of definitively guaranteeing the protection of the central space of Gallecs. In October 2009, the Catalan government approved the inclusion of Gallecs and started writing the Special Plan.

Financing

Sources of funding:

Public regional budget

Fondos proporcionados por una organización no gubernamental

Budget:

1 000 000€ - 5 000 000€

Details about instrument financing:

The total costs specified in the Special Urban Plan are €1,978,548 for actions that regulate paths and roads; water; agriculture; forestry; and equipment; as well as the demolition of non-functioning buildings; services and facilities; and furniture and signage.

Monitoring, evaluation and impacts

Is a monitoring framework in place?:

Yes

Cada año se elabora una memoria para controlar la asistencia a las reuniones del Consorcio, el presupuesto y el avance del Plan Anual de Acciones. Estos informes se comparten en la página web del Consorcio, aunque actualmente sólo existen las memorias de 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013 y 2014.

Did an evaluation take place?:

Achieved outcomes and impacts:

Due to the protection of the area and several actions that have been implemented, Gallecs is now one of the most extensive agricultural areas in the territory (75% of the territory); forests occupy 14%. The remainder of the area is made up of buildings, recreational gardens, green spaces and more than thirty linear kilometers of hiking paths. The main outcome of the Special Urban Plan and the previous Urban Master Plan is the avoidance of the urbanization of the area, which would have completely destroyed this agroforestry mosaic. The consolidation of a multi-scale governance entity such as the Consorci de Gallecs is a successful outcome, which has cooperated with social and farmers' organisations to govern the space.

Success factors and lessons learned:

One of the key success factors is the multi-level governance of the Consorci de Gallecs managing the area, which includes representatives of the Catalan government and representatives of all the municipalities that have part of their area under protection within Gallecs. A strong popular movement that claimed the protection of the area during the '80 and particular city councils such as Mollet del Vallès that promoted urban planning actions to conserve it were key to ensure the protection of the area, which was going to be urbanized.

Sources and further information

References

List of references:

Direcció de Projectes (2017). Pla Especial Urbanístic del Parc Territorial de Gallecs per a la recuperació, millora i protecció del medi natural i del paisatge. Institut Català del Sòl, Generalitat de Catalunya.

Consorci de Gallecs. (2014). Memòria 2014. Available at: http://www.espairuralgallecs.cat/ca/documentacio/memories-anuals-3/index.htm

Further documents

Documents:

Pla Especial proteccio Gallecs.pdf

Weblinks:

http://www.espairuralgallecs.cat/ca/que-es/l-espai-rural-3/index.htm

Photos

Cesc Gudayol