The project, which replaces the so called “Operación Chamartín”, was designed as the biggest urban intervention in Europe, and aims to convert the North part of Madrid in a major business center, around the train station Chamartín.
The Minister of Development, Íñigo de la Serna; the Mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena, and the Chairman of DCN, Antonio Béjar, gave the details of this project in a press conference, paralyzed for 24 years.
The parties have committed to withdraw the ongoing legal proceedings against the plenary decision from May 2016, which rejected the Operación Chamartín, conceived in 1993, approved in 1997 and reactivated in 2015.
Instead, Carmena proposed, under the name “Madrid Puerta Norte”, reduce to half the developable area -1.7 million m2- and reduce from 17,000 to 4,600 the number of houses to build.
The total building area of the new project will have 2.68 million m2, 1.2 million of which are intended to offices.
In the financial area there will be 300,000 m2 of plots for houses, even though the majority of residential area is located north of the M30, one of the main ring roads of the capital.
With the agreement, the number of houses goes from the initially planned 17,000 to 11,000, from which 20% have some sort of protection.
However, Madrid City Council announced that to the 2,200 subsidized houses will join other non-subsidized 1,900 houses, raising the percentage to 37%.
The operating area will also have green areas and shall be implemented transportation systems “suitable to ensure a sustainable mobility”, as explained Madrid City Council in a press release.
The station Chamartín, axis of the project, will include ten new routes, to a total of 31, 18 of which will be for the high speed lines, instead of the current six, and 13 for surrounding areas.
The Minister of Development, Íñigo de la Serna, referred that this operation was “very difficult” to deal with, from a technical and political point of view, but highlighted that, finally, were met the “interests of all parties”.
According to his calculations, the project implies an investment of around €6,000 million and will create around 200,000 jobs.
“The city council is proud of have opened the door to negotiations and to have found partners”, said Mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena, “touched” with this agreement.
Both the Minister of Development and the Madrid city Council estimate the modification of the General Urban Development Plan, an essential step for the project approval, could be approved by the end of 2018, on the municipal plenary.
Later, this amendment would have to be ratified by the Government of the Community of Madrid.