The residents of Madrid and Barcelona are fed up with what they consider an invasion of the streets and squares by the terraces.
And since they do not feel cared for by the City Councils of their cities, the neighborhood federations of both capitals ―FRAVM and FAVB respectively― have asked the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, and the Síndic de Greuges, the Catalan ombudsman, for protection this Thursday. exercised by Esther Giménez-Salinas.
In a 10-page letter, also signed by FACUA Madrid, they demand help from the two institutions in the face of "defenselessness" and the occupation of public space.
For this reason, they are asked to investigate whether the City Councils comply with the ordinances that regulate the terraces.
Enrique Villalobos, president of the FRAVM, and Ana Menéndez, president of the FAVB, argue that the municipal regulations are not followed and that those establishments that transgress them do not receive any sanction.
"We ask the Ombudsman to help us recover the cities," Villalobos asked.
“He is the one who can defend us when the administrations do not do their job and we hope that he will demand a more compliant behavior from them.”
The same complaint is transferred to the Ombudsman, because the Ombudsman does not have powers in Catalonia.
The Madrid City Council approved the new terrace ordinance on January 25, after an agreement between PP, Ciudadanos and the Mixed Group, to collect the measure implemented after the pandemic that allowed premises to place more nightstands or occupy parking spaces.
This norm replaced the one approved in 2013 by the then mayor Ana Botella (PP), which relaxed the requirements to install terraces on public roads.
The ordinance aroused criticism from neighborhood associations, which have not stopped submitting claims to the administration, despite the change in legislation.
Criticisms for the noise, dirtiness and occupation of the street, among other complaints, increased as the space occupied by tables on the street increased.
Terrace of a bar on Industria Street in Barcelona. GIANLUCA BATTISTA
At the end of spring 2020, the Consistory approved a set of extraordinary measures due to covid-19, so that bars and restaurants could expand their terraces and even install them in parking spaces without paying taxes.
It was about facilitating business at a time when it was not allowed to consume inside bars and restaurants.
For example, more than 2,000 sidewalk extensions were authorized, according to data from the City Council.
The famous covid terraces,
that were destined to disappear, at least those located in parking areas, with the new regulations before 2024, as announced by the deputy mayor, Begoña Villacís (Citizens), in October last year.
But the new ordinance, approved this January and in force since February 1, commits to maintaining these nightstands, as long as they do not occupy more than 40% of the street.
In addition, the Madrid City Council created a map with the so-called saturated areas, those in which the terraces occupy practically the entire space.
There are 256 saturated areas, many concentrated in neighborhoods of the Centro district such as Ponzano, Ibiza or Lavapiés.
In these high-occupancy spaces, the City Council undertook to remove all the extended terraces.
272 complaints
The deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, has defended this Thursday the benefits of the Madrid ordinance, when asked about the complaint of the neighborhood federations.
“That ordinance, in my opinion, is technically good, and it is so good that Barcelona has replicated it practically identically”, she stated.
According to her, since this rule has been in force, the City Council has received 272 complaints from the city's watchmen, a percentage that she has considered "singularly low."
Enrique Villalobos differs and criticizes that the new ordinance "has not changed anything" because "it was made with the hospitality industry in mind and without listening to the citizens."
Since it was approved, the FRAVM has received more than 400 neighborhood complaints, sent through a form on its website.
The last one is from September 5th.
“The terraces are an accessory activity of bars and restaurants.
They are convincing us that it is not, that it is something essential and that without it a business is unviable”, he points out.
The president of the FRAVM attributes the problem to a lack of surveillance and control of the hotel activity, the result of a shortage in the number of municipal police officers and administrative personnel who process the sanctions.
He also criticizes the process by which the owner of a bar or restaurant can request authorization to set up a terrace in the capital.
Interested parties must submit to the administration a declaration of responsibility, a signed document in which they undertake to comply with the requirements established in the ordinance.
"This streamlines the administration, as long as whoever requests them really complies, but in Madrid that doesn't happen," he lamented.
Barcelona, more restrictive
The Barcelona terrace ordinance, which the mayor Ada Colau inherited from the previous municipal government of Xavier Trias, and which has undergone several modifications as a result of negotiations with the restaurant industry, is generally more restrictive than that of Madrid.
It requires a license, contains restrictions on the capacity and the distance between the tables and the façade, and the hours are more restricted.
However, Ana Menéndez, president of the FAVB, considers that in many cases this rule is a dead letter: "There is a general breach by the sector, the administrations do not exercise their role of control and sanction, and, in addition, the modifications of the ordinance have made it fail to comply with higher-ranking laws, such as the accessibility law to allow the passage of people with disabilities”.
This, she claims she,
It has given rise to “very serious health problems related to sleep disturbance, anxiety or depression.
People end up selling the flat, they leave the neighborhood, because they are desperate, also because the proliferation of terraces causes neighborhood businesses to be expelled.
The FAVB launched this year a campaign of photographic complaints on its social networks to point out breaches in the occupation of public space, and received more than 600 complaints.
Now they have gone through administrative channels, and as a neighborhood federation they have filed around 100 complaints, but they have not yet received a response.
With the pandemic, Barcelona also allowed the installation, in principle provisional, of terraces on sidewalks and asphalt.
The ordinance was modified to make these terraces permanent, but the City Council warned that it would not renew the licenses in the most saturated streets.
77% of the bars and restaurants that expanded their terraces have requested that they be consolidated (2,800 of the 3,600 extraordinary licenses that were granted during the pandemic).
The Guild of Restaurateurs assures that the vast majority of licenses are being denied and they accuse the City Council of not keeping its word, but Menéndez believes that this is not the case: "Our great concern is that they be consolidated."
In both federations they demand a change in the current ordinances.
Among the common points is the restriction of the hours of the terraces with eleven at night as a limit, in Madrid they now close at one in the morning and in Barcelona, at midnight.
They also ask that the terraces be seasonal elements that only open in the summer months, that they do not exceed the width of the facade of the establishments, that small single-foot tables, called night tables, be eliminated, that the requirements for ensure pedestrian pathways or reduce the space occupied by tables in public squares.
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