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Spanish ‘ghost towns’ slowly come to life
GUADALAJARA, Spain, Dec 31, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Concrete skeletons still haunt
Spain, 10 years after the 2008 global economic crisis caused a housing boom
to crumble, bankrupting developers and dotting the landscape with unfinished
projects.
But buoyed by an economic recovery, some “ciudades fantasma”, or “ghost
towns”, are gradually reviving, such as Valdeluz near Guadalajara, around 60
kilometres (40 miles) northeast of Madrid.
Valdeluz was designed as a dormitory town for 30,000 residents near a new
station where high-speed trains linking the Spanish capital to the
northeastern region of Catalonia stop, but the lead developer went bankrupt
shortly after the crisis hit.
When Almudena Castillo moved in to a flat there 11 years ago, she said she
had “a maximum of eight neighbours”.
“There were days when I did not come across anyone,” she recalled.
Valdeluz is now home to 4,000 people as banks have gradually sold
apartments they reclaimed from bankrupt developers.
Spain’s economic rebound, which began in 2014, and the fact that Valdeluz
is located near an economic axis between Madrid and Guadalajara has helped
breathe new life into the town, Jose Luis Ruiz Bartolome, the author of a
book on the rise and fall of Spain’s property market, told AFP.
– ‘Not as isolated’ –
Jose Miguel Cocera, the mayor of Yebes, which is administratively
responsible for Valdeluz, said that investment in services such as a new
sports complex which opened last year had been the key to success.
A primary school which closed in 2013 reopened four years later and now has
300 students.
“It’s not as isolated as before,” said Luis Miguel Cobo, who in 2015
founded a football club in Valdeluz, a project he says would have been
impossible before due to a lack of players and infrastructure.
“Before we had to leave Valdeluz by car to buy anything. Today there is a
supermarket, two grocery stores, a pharmacy, a veterinary and three bars,” he
added.
Valdeluz’s mayor wants to establish an technological industrial zone next
year to attract a major company that would bring in even more residents.
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– Safety concerns –
The situation is not as encouraging in nearby Yebes however, where about 50
empty flats in a neighbourhood dubbed “sector 10” is a cause of concern for
local residents.
Anca Bejan bought her first home there a year ago, a 170-square-metre
(1,830-square-foot) flat for which she paid just 60,000 euros ($68,000).
But every morning she wakes up to a view of empty buildings with closed
shutters.
Two blocks away, 20 buildings are decaying, their floors littered with
blueprints.
“When I arrived, these houses were in better shape. But with time people
came and began to steal everything. As long as we cannot find their owner, as
long as we don’t decide whether or not to demolish them, we have to live with
them,” Bejan said.
Meanwhile, she worries for her 10-year-old son.
“You can find all kinds of people living inside empty homes,” Bejan
remarked.
Mayor Cocera said absent homeowners refused to look after their properties.
All the municipal government can do is “try to keep the area clean”, he
added.
– ‘Exaggerated production’ –
Several parts of the country are blighted by abandoned housing developments
such as the “Ciudad Jardin Soto Real” in Buniel near the northern city of
Burgos, where sacks of cement still lie beside unfinished red brick
buildings.
“There was an exaggerated, enormous production” of homes before the crisis,
said Bartolome, the property sector specialist.
Housing prices rose sharply as growing numbers of Spaniards invested in
real estate because mortgages were easy to get, he added.
Corruption fuelled the construction frenzy as elected officials approved
projects on land where building was banned in exchange for kickbacks.
In 2006 alone, 900,000 new homes were built in Spain, ten times as many as
in 2017, according to Idealista.com, Spain’s biggest online property
advertising site.
“We must accept that we will continue to have ghost towns,” because homes
were built “in areas where no one wants to live,” concluded Fernando Encinar,
head of research at Idealista.com.
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