What until recently seemed legally impossible or unfeasible, today has the explicit support of the Generalitat de Catalunya. The scenario for urbanizations like Santa Maria de l'Avall has just changed significantly.
Just yesterday, the digital newspaper El Nacional published a news item that could represent a turning point for our municipality and for thousands of neighbors throughout Catalonia. Under the headline "Illa proposes to order the urbanizations of Catalonia and put an end to the disorder", the Government has announced a change of course in how administrations should address urban deficits.
In an informative session with the municipal world, President Salvador Illa and the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, made the new roadmap clear. And the exact words of the minister reflect well the importance of this shift:
The end of "all or nothing" and a change of approach
One of the main reasons for rejecting the project of more than 12 million euros proposed in Santa Maria de l'Avall was precisely its "all at once" approach, with unaffordable costs for many owners.
In its intervention, the Government explicitly recognized that this approach blocked any solution. “Either everything was done at once or nothing could be done, or everything was executed with unaffordable costs or nothing could be done,” explained Paneque. Faced with this, President Illa opts for a more gradual and realistic path, opening the door to phased actions and solutions adapted to each situation.
This change in approach is relevant because it directly questions the unique and rigid models that, in practice, have hindered the resolution of these problems for years.
Sanitation: the door opens to alternatives
But the news includes a particularly relevant element for our case, which we have been debating for some time as a possible viable, economic, and more adapted alternative to the territory:
Although this announcement does not go into specific technical details, it does set a clear direction: when connection to the general network represents a disproportionate difficulty, alternative solutions can be considered.
This reinforces the viability of studying autonomous purification systems in those areas where the orography or costs make a conventional solution unfeasible.
It is worth remembering one of the main problems of the sewage project proposed for Santa Maria de l'Avall: the documentation itself recognizes that not all plots will be able to evacuate by gravity. In fact, there is a significant number of plots that could require individual pumping systems, which introduces an added technical and economic complexity for many neighbors.
Financing: the ICF comes into play
The third pillar of this announcement addresses another key issue: financing. Until now, the model seemed to transfer practically the entire cost to the neighbors. However, the Generalitat has announced:
This implies the possibility of accessing credit lines under favorable conditions, both for the town councils and for individuals, facilitating the execution of solutions that until now were difficult to assume.
A new scenario that forces a rethinking of decisions
If in previous analyses we positively valued that the City Council recognized the problem as a country challenge, today this new context offers concrete tools to move forward.
With the Generalitat opting for:
- Gradual solutions.
- Technical alternatives when necessary.
- Financing mechanisms.
A different scenario opens up from what existed until now. This new framework significantly reduces the margin for proposing unique and high-cost solutions without first exploring other options more adapted to the reality of the territory and the neighbors.
It is time for the Corbera City Council to embrace this change in institutional approach and deeply evaluate all available alternatives before consolidating a model that can be economically very demanding for a significant part of the population.