The future of Cádiz’s housing model under debate at a specialist forum attended by EDDEA
The future of Cádiz’s housing model was the subject of debate at a conference organised by the Zona Franca de Cádiz and Diario de Cádiz. At the event, a number of experts – among them architect Jorge Izquierdo of the EDDEA team – shared their views on the subject, taking the project for the new Navalips urban quarter as their common thread.
Under the title ‘Rethinking Cádiz’s housing model’, this meeting followed on from one held in December specifically on the outer industrial estate, where 800 homes and a large green area are planned. It is one of the most ambitious proposals in the field, promoted by the Consorcio de la Zona Franca, the state company Sepides and Cádiz City Council.
The panel ‘Navalips, reinventing a new space’ brought together – alongside Jorge Izquierdo of EDDEA – Nuria Ródenas, project management architect at Sepides; José Fernández, chairman of Grupo Carrod and developer of Torre D’Arenas on the outer industrial estate; and Jorge Fernández-Portillo, secretary general of the Federación de Agrupaciones de Empresarios de la Construcción de Cádiz.
Izquierdo said that the intervention planned for Navalips “is a very important operation for the city. It is like a seed for rethinking the outer Zona Franca”. He also set out the different uses of this new urban fabric, which combines market-rate and subsidised housing, green spaces, leisure areas and commercial use with local shops.
On the project, Nuria Ródenas said she hopes that “within two and a half years all the procedures can be completed so that we can see the machines at work on the site of the old ship-propeller factory”. To that end, she considered cooperation between administrations essential, as well as the fact that the formula chosen does not require an amendment to the General Urban Plan (PGOU).
Ródenas highlighted the value of the scheme because “it is not conceived as just another neighbourhood”. She said that “it is different, but it respects what is there”, and listed the principles behind it: “identity, which Cádiz has in abundance, but when you take on a project you run the risk of doing something very different, and here the structure of the area has been kept. At the same time, we want it to be liveable, sustainable, friendlier and healthier”.
Housing model
For his part, Jorge Fernández-Portillo defended the housing model as a generator of economic activity and of jobs, “which is enormous”. Although it is a hotel rather than housing, he cited the example of the Hotel Cádiz Bahía, “which came to generate as many as 1,000 jobs”. He also pointed to two elements he considers fundamental: “Strategy, and dropping the hang-ups”.
Finally, Jorge Fernández spoke about his first-hand experience, having carried out the only housing scheme around the outer industrial estate of the Zona Franca with Torre D’Arenas, a project that “paid off financially, but above all emotionally”. He noted that the initiative “showed other colleagues the way” because it was created with a distinctive design “to try to show the city’s best face”.
Before this first panel, the conference was opened by Lorena Garrón, spokesperson for the governing team of Cádiz City Council; Isabel Suraña, dean of the Association of Architects (Colegio de Arquitectos); and Fran González, State delegate at the Zona Franca de Cádiz, who said the Navalips operation will mean “recovering a space and making it available to the public”.