Speakers
Description
This study examines the complex challenges inherent in the public-public partnership established in 2023 between SEPES—the Public Land Entity under the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility, and Urban Agenda (MITMA)—and the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The primary objective of this partnership is to repurpose decommissioned military sites for social housing, thereby fostering socially equitable urban regeneration. The initiative encompasses the redevelopment of 8.25 million square meters across 50 MoD-owned assets, facilitating the construction of 19,876 affordable housing units in 34 municipalities within 15 of Spain’s 17 Autonomous Communities, with an estimated public investment of €620 million (MITMA, 2023). This project aligns with the broader state-led “Affordable Rental Housing Plan,” which seeks to utilize public land for social housing development, ensuring equitable access to adequate housing as enshrined in the Spanish Constitution. The implementation of this specific public-public partnership entails the transfer of MoD land to SEPES, which is responsible for enabling participatory and inclusive land readjustment while integrating private-sector stakeholders into the redevelopment process.
The central hypothesis of this research is that this innovative collaboration between public entities can reconcile the longstanding tension between the MoD’s short-term financial imperative to divest land for revenue generation and the long-term urban and social needs of local communities. Furthermore, this partnership has the potential to navigate the complex process of converting former military sites into civilian uses—a transformation typically fraught with architectural, environmental, legal, financial, and urban planning challenges, particularly in the aftermath of post-2007-08 urban austerity policies. A comparative analysis of two case studies—Madrid’s Campamento barracks (a site ready for development) and Valladolid’s La Rubia barracks (a site not yet development-ready)—provides empirical insight into the challenges and opportunities associated with the implementation of this public-public partnership in large-scale urban regeneration projects.
The comparison discusses about the wider operation across Spain, in particular it focuses on the broad range of governance arrangements framing planning and enabling transition from the military use to social housing to face the increasing social and economic inequalities. The transformation of these barracks would necessitate enabling specific institutional aspects of planning governance (i.e. the rules, laws, and procedural requirements), as well as the possibilities opened by community practices and actors (co-)operating within these structural settings. This work also discuss how these practices might lead to generative conflicts, institutional learning, and enhanced reflexivity. In fact, the conversion of military land would mean a significant economic investment, which some administrations are reluctant to undertake, particularly in light of existing housing plans within communities such as Castilla y León (La Rubia barracks). These plans are aimed at providing affordable rents for vulnerable populations, in accordance with budgetary allocations that facilitate the progressive acquisition of assets, along with their subsequent rehabilitation and integration into the regional housing stock. In this case, and so far, the criticisms have not been more evident, something that may be due to the fact that, in principle, it will be the Spanish Government itself that will be responsible for purchasing the land from the Ministry of Defence (Campamento barracks). Nevertheless, there are still some reservations as to whether the central government will also be responsible for the building of these social housing units or whether, once again, it will transfer this responsibility to the autonomous communities and local authorities.
References
Adisson, Francesca & Artioli, Felix (2020) Four types of urban austerity: Public land privatisations in French and Italian cities Urban Studies, 57 (1), pp. 75‒92
Camerin, Federico & Córdoba-Hernández, Rafael (2023) La enajenación del patrimonio inmobiliario militar en España: una aproximación en torno a las cuestiones de regeneración urbana Ciudad Y Territorio Estudios Territoriales, 55 (216), pp. 309-330
Ponzini, Davide & Vani, Marco (2014) Planning for military real estate conversion: collaborative practices and urban redevelopment projects in two Italian cities Urban Research & Practice, 7 (1), pp. 56-73
Touchton, Michael, & Ashley, Amanda J. (2019) Salvaging Community. How American Cities Rebuild Closed Military Bases. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
| Keywords | Public policies; urban regeneration; public-owned land; policy coordination; housing crisis |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
