The residents of the Madrid district of Montecarmelo fear that something will smell bad with the relocation of the garbage truck bases promoted by the Madrid city council. The platform “No” to the Canton of Montecarmelo denounces that the municipal government intends to locate one of the purification cantons “without regard for the neighbors” on a plot of land near the Alemán school, the Sol Solito kindergarten and the municipal cemetery of Fuencarral. These devices serve as storage and changing rooms for municipal sweepers and sometimes also as a temporary garbage dump on the way to the landfill. The rejection is so great that the platform called a rally for this Sunday, in which more than a hundred people took part, despite the rain. Neighbors chanted “No cantones entre coles” and carried signs, tarpaulins and even umbrellas with slogans like “No to the canton” and “Move now.”
The protest took place just a few meters away from the property where the new infrastructure is to be built. The project is part of the public space cleaning contract worth around 1.7 billion euros awarded at the end of 2021 and, in addition to sweeping and washing, also provides for the construction of 16 new cantons in Madrid. The building was originally supposed to be built in Montecarmelo near the Infanta Leonor school, about 700 meters from the site of this weekend’s protest. The rejection of the surrounding residents coincided with the eve of the 28 M elections, in which José Luis Martínez Almeida sought – and achieved – re-election.
In light of the controversy, Almeida’s government paused the project on April 17, just over a month before the vote, to examine alternative sites in this and eleven other cantons. On May 8, the delegate for urban planning, environment and mobility, Borja Carabante, met with the residents of this northern district and informed them that “together with the associations they will find a new location,” as he explains. a statement from the Montecarmelo Neighborhood Association released a week ago. They only learned more about the issue in July, when they discovered movement of machinery on the property.
Posters and canvases against the new canton of Montecarmelo hung on the residential buildings in front of the selected property. JUAN BARBOSA
After weeks of uncertainty, the neighbors knew which alternative would be chosen for the work. At the beginning of September, the neighbors organized themselves into the platform “No to the Canton of Montecarmelo”, which claims to bring together more than 16,000 people from 58 urbanizations, educational institutions and companies. The neighborhood’s balconies and walls are filled with tarps and posters with messages opposing relocation to the property.
The platform denounces that the contract for Lot 3 – which includes the districts of Fuencarral, Moncloa and Latina – was changed in August, in the middle of the holidays, to move the canton “to the worst place of all possible”, like Rafael Llanes says representative of the organization. “It will be next to two schools [el Alemán y Santa María La Blanca]“There are a total of more than 3,000 children, a kindergarten, a cemetery, residential areas and the Green Belt,” he explains. The canton’s main building will occupy 872 square meters of the property, while the workshops and warehouses will take up another 588 square meters. A city council document sent to the Alemán school states that there are 502. “The distance to the school is 124 meters […] This means there are no acoustic or visual disturbances, let alone odors, as this facility is simply used for parking vehicles and the rubbish left improperly on the road is transferred from small trucks to larger ones for transport. some residents of Fuencarral,” explain municipal officials. The letter sent contains several replicas of the building, which they say will have a sustainable design with “bioclimatic facades” and a “green roof.”
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Demetrio Álvarez, who lives in front of the property and whose children attend the Alemán school, was one of those who took part in the protest this Sunday. With an umbrella in one hand and a shield in the other, he assures: “It is nonsense to put the canton here, since there are many more possibilities; “There is an area on the road from Fuencarral to Alcobendas.” This location, a little less than two kilometers from the disputed property, was proposed by the neighborhood association to the city council. Sara Puebla, another affected person and mother of a student at the Santa María La Blanca school, explains that she is worried not only about the noise and possible bad smells that the project could bring, but also about the impact on the community Mobility: “The entrance and exit of the neighborhood in the morning is a funnel. “With the movement of cleaning vehicles it would be terrible.”
A moment of concentration for the residents of Montecarmelo this Sunday. JUAN BARBOSA
While the protest took place in the north of Madrid, in the center, in El Retiro Park, the delegate for urban planning, environment and mobility, Borja Carabante, confirmed that he would meet with the representatives of the neighborhood “next Monday” to give explanations about the project , the alternatives analyzed and “why this property meets the conditions from a technical and minimal impact perspective.” “It is the furthest property from any house,” he argued. Carabante emphasized that it was the city council’s obligation “not to start work before informing the neighbors.”
The district representatives hope that this meeting will also explain to them why the new “macrocanton” will combine several facilities in one. The city planning delegate confirmed this information on September 12th. “It is a question of a transfer of the Selur to Arroyofresno and of the canton that was transferred to the other side of the Pau, on the road from Colmenar to Montecarmelo,” he said at a city council event. In the same week, Almeida defended, insisting that there will be “no waste treatment” and that measures will be taken to minimize the impact on mobility.
But there is a certain mistrust in Montecarmelo. Raúl Baena, one of the first to come to the protest this Sunday, affirms that “paper contains everything” and criticizes that “the reality of the cantons in Madrid is that they bring noise, bad smells and inconvenience to neighbors”. The representative of the platform “No to the Canton of Montecarmelo” clarifies that the organization has “a civic character without any political connotation,” but recognizes that “a large part of the neighborhood elected the people who sit on the city council and maybe.” That’s why they say: “You feel so hurt and disappointed.” In Montecarmelo, the PP received between 60 and 70% of the vote in the 28M elections.
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