A few meters from the meadow of San Isidro, the neighbors of Los Cármenes hang from their balconies posters in protest against the project that the Plenary of the Madrid City Council approved yesterday for their neighborhood. Between the Cuña Verde park and the now semi-abandoned Ermita del Santo shopping center, 529 new homes are to be built, despite the fact that the neighbors have been organizing demonstrations and protests since 2022 against what they have described as a new “urban development “pelotazo, which only responds to the interests of the new owners of the land”.
Desarrollos Ermita del Santo, SOCIMI, S.A. is the group of five companies that own these 50,000 square meters. With the largest stake (30%) is the Venezuelan businessman Alberto Enrique Finol Galué, who, according to El Confidencial, was also behind a similar requalification in Barcelona.
The controversy of the urban development plan at Ermita del Santo
Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida assures that the neighbors “will gain endowments, public spaces and housing”. The City Council’s plan in the face of protests is to relocate the current Goya Theater, give continuity to the existing sports facilities on Los Caprichos Avenue -although the gym has announced its closure next December- and create a green corridor linking the Ermita del Santo and Caramuel parks. It will also allocate 28% of the housing to public protection.
Meanwhile, the residents of the area, organized in platforms such as SOS Ermita del Santo, continue to demand an expansion of public services in a neighborhood where they are already very saturated and the arrival of almost 600 new families is expected.
In addition, these new homes, which will take the form of large towers of up to 23 stories high – the protesters managed to get some meters lowered – will follow the line of the residential developments that have been built just across the Madrid Río, where the old Santiago Calderón stadium used to be, according to the protesters, will contribute to the “gentrification of the neighborhood”. Among the complaints are also added the high price of public housing rents, which according to the neighbors will be around 1,600 €.
Last May, the High Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) admitted the appeal of Ecologists in Action and the association SOS Ermita del Santo against the project. Thus, the residents of the area have channeled through legal channels what, according to them, is a lack of response from the City Council to the 1,000 allegations that they have presented to them. However, the admission to proceedings does not mean that the project will be paralyzed.