GironaThe park is untouched. This is the name of the platform to preserve the Jordi Vilamitjana park, the great green lung of Girona that had to disappear due to the construction of the new Health campus of the Josep Trueta hospital. And this Sunday they are breathing after organizing a whole day of activities on Saturday to reclaim this space in the Can Gibert del Pla neighborhood. For more than a year they have been fighting against the construction of 347 flats in this oasis in the southern sector of the city, which had become the big stone in the shoe of the project that will occupy the reorganization of the campus in Girona, since most of the facilities go to Salt. But now there seems to be a prospect of keeping the park.
After weeks of negotiations, the Generalitat and the City Council have agreed to study that the buildings that had to be built to compensate the owners of the land where the campus will be moved to the area of the Mas Xirgu industrial estate, on the land adjacent to the Masrocs. It is the proposal made by the Department of Territory, Housing and Ecological Transition of the Generalitat, headed by councilor Sílvia Peneque, and which the Girona council has accepted “once the land is given in advance for the construction of the hospital equipment”. And also as long as the alternative does not affect flood zones and is economically sustainable.
Change investments
In exchange, a series of investments to improve public space in various neighborhoods of the city have been agreed. This will have to be specified in an upcoming meeting, before the Christmas holidays, of the Bilateral Commission between the Generalitat and Girona City Council. A new decision table that the executive of Salvador Illa promoted when he began to govern, but which for the moment had only been launched in Barcelona, Tarragona and Lleida, governed by socialist mayors.
“It is possible to do the Trueta, not affect the Parc Jordi Vilamitjana and make the maximum effort so that the Health Campus of Girona is operational as soon as possible”, points out Sílvia Paneque in a joint statement with the council on the investment agreement. In turn, the mayor of Girona, Lluc Salellas, praises the “good work” carried out so far by the City Council which “has allowed us to scrupulously comply with the schedule and ensure that the Health Campus is not delayed”.
Regarding Vilamitjana Park, Salellas is more cautious and limits it to the Government’s approval of future investments for the neighborhood. “It will be analyzed taking into account its urban planning and legal viability, the data on buildability, the global impact on the project and its schedule, and the commitment of the Generalitat to make investments in the neighborhoods surrounding the future campus.”
“The fight is not over”
From the El parc no se toca platform, they say that “it’s good news”, but that “the fight is not over yet” until they see a signed plan. “We don’t know the exact location, nor the economic viability or whether the private sector will agree,” says Anna Ballestero, spokesperson for the entity and also president of Puput, the association that organized a whole day of activities in Vilamitjana Park on Saturday, from a second-hand market to a reggae party. “The agreement is there, the will is there, it seems to be; we will see how the next few days continue and we will continue to claim that this materializes – he adds -. We will not relax.”
Impulse to the new Trueta
After turning a corner on this impasse in Girona regarding the construction of the future health campus, “the most important thing that has been promoted in the demarcation of Girona in recent decades”, the two parties point out that they “share” that “this improvement proposal” cannot in any case lead to delays in the start-up of the hospital and research park that must replace the Trueta.
Salellas has repeatedly expressed fears that the new Clínic hospital in Barcelona will be ahead of the construction of the new Health Campus in Girona. But during the last autumn, the procedures were accelerated. The Girona City Council has started the approval phase for the contracting of the rezoning and urbanization projects, while the Generalitat de Catalunya has already commissioned the study prior to the Health Campus project competition.
