Sostre Cívic will develop 70-75 cooperative homes on municipal land owned by Barcelona City Council

The project includes an inclusive community accompanied by the TEB cooperative group of up to 24 people with intellectual disabilities

The Sant Andreu neighborhood of Barcelona will host a new building of cooperative housing in right of use. The project of between 70-75 homes will be the largest to date in Catalonia and in Spain as a whole, and the first to have an inclusive community for people with intellectual disabilities. It will be developed on a municipal lot located at Avinguda Torras i Bages 126-128, in the Sant Andreu neighborhood of Barcelona. The council cedes the plot of land to the Catalan cooperative through a 75-year surface right Sostre Cívic, the it is part of the municipal policies to support foundations and cooperatives to increase the social stock of affordable housing.

Beyond its size, the future building will be a pioneer in incorporating an ambitious project of inter-cooperation and inclusion. The inclusive community integrated within the general community of the entire building will be driven by the TEB cooperative group, which will ensure the inclusive perspective in all aspects of the project, and will accompany the community of people with intellectual disabilities during coexistence. 

This project is the first inter-cooperation agreement signed between TEB and Sostre Cívic, which combine efforts with the aim of responding to both the problem of access to affordable housing and that of social inclusion. "We want to develop an inclusive and transformative cooperative housing model, with a community model that breaks with the stigmas of people with intellectual disabilities", representatives of the two entities have stated. "The model also wants to be a reference to promote access to housing for other people in a vulnerable situation."

The inclusive community will have collective spaces that will take into account the reality of people with disabilities. Pending the finalization of the architectural project, the community is expected to accommodate around 25 people with intellectual disabilities. Within this community there will also be housing for people who share this inclusive vision.

Public support to make more affordable housing 

The Sant Andreu public lot will be transferred to the cooperative through the procedure indicated in the ESAL Agreement. It will be the second lot transferred to Sostre Cívic, after the project for senior citizens of Ch70 in Sarrià, through this agreement signed at the end of 2020 between the City Council and the main non-profit housing organizations. The agreement envisages the construction of a thousand social flats through the provision of land to entities, access to public funding and advantageous fiscal and financial situations. Since 2015, 6 cooperative housing developments have already been built on municipal land, representing 125 homes, and through the ESAL Agreement, there are already 11 more developments planned, with 298 homes.

Sostre Cívic plans to start building the homes during 2024, to transform it into reality in 2026. To participate in the project you will need to be a member of Sostre Cívic, be registered in Barcelona and registered in the register of applicants for official housing. Although the drive group registration campaign will not open until the fall of 2023, Sostre Cívic and TEB will now begin to set up a project participation committee in order to define the project's characteristics.

More information at Project page or La Interna (for members only) 

The architectural design will be carried out by Pau Vidal and Yaiza Terré, chosen through a competition of ideas from the supplier base of Sostre Cívic. It will be a sustainable building: both the architectural project, the materials and the facilities will be designed to have an energetically class A building. The economic details will be defined later, looking for maximum affordability and compatible with all the principles of the project.