Operación Campamento is no longer just a plan on the table that has been on the drawing board since 1989. With the last urban planning procedures completed and the announcement of the start of construction, the transformation of 2.1 million square meters of former military land in southwest Madrid into a new neighborhood with more than 10,000 homes,most of them public or with some type of protection, has begun. It is the largest urban regeneration operation facing the capital along with Madrid Nuevo Norte and is set to profoundly change the city’s affordable housing stock over the next decade.
The Campamento development is in the district of Latina, between the Paseo de Extremadura and the avenues of Los Poblados and Aviación, on the site of former barracks now in disuse. Of the total, some 7,000 units (approximately 65%) will have some type of protection: 3,800 limited-price public protection housing units, 2,100 basic public protection units and 1,100 units specifically for affordable rent, while the remaining 3,700 units will be free.
Political unblocking and the first steps
After almost four decades of blockages, the operation was finally reactivated with the agreement reached between the central government and the Madrid City Council, which culminated in 2024 with the municipal approval of the joint project and the creation of the Compensation Board that will manage the development. The State, through the Ministry of Housing and SEPES, provides the military land and has injected additional funds for its acquisition and urbanization, while the City Council assumes the urban planning process and the deployment of part of the local infrastructures.
According to the timetables handled by both administrations, the bidding for the urbanization works was scheduled for 2025 and 2026, with the intention of starting the construction of the first residential developments at the end of 2025, which has not happened, but yesterday the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced in situ the start of the works, in addition to other controversial measures for rent control that favor the owners, such as the reduction of the IRPF.
Different estimates place the completion of the entire development around 2031, with an execution in two major phases that will gradually put homes on the market.
More public housing and undergrounding of the A-5 highway
Campamento is not only a residential project: it also includes one of the city’s major road works, the extension of the A-5 highway undergrounding beyond Avenida de los Poblados, in order to sew the new neighborhood with the existing urban fabric and reduce the barrier effect of the highway. The first section of the undergrounding, between Paseo de Extremadura and Los Poblados, is being promoted by the City Council, while the second, directly linked to Campamento, is being carried out by the central government as part of the development itself.
The objective is that the arrival of the 10,700 homes will not be accompanied by more noise and surface traffic, but by new underground connections, better public transport and large green areas that articulate the neighborhood and connect it with neighboring municipalities such as Alcorcón. In terms of housing volume and infrastructure integration, the central government and the City Council agree in presenting it as an emblem of “affordable housing linked to a more sustainable city”.
Impact on Madrid’s housing stock
Operation Campamento comes in parallel to other plans of the City Council to expand the affordable rental stock through the EMVS, which has more than 6,000 housing units underway and plans to start another 2,500 in 2026 in six different districts. Added together, these programs and the 10,700 apartments in Campamento mean, in the medium term, more than 16,000 new homes with some type of protection or moderate rent.
For Madrid residents looking for a home, the effect will not be immediate and it remains to be seen whether it will have an impact in the more distant future after the upward trend in housing prices in recent years, with annual rises of up to 20% in some neighborhoods according to Idealista data.