This Saturday, the municipal police prevented some businessmen authorized by the Madrid City Council from transporting a heavy machine over some residential buildings near the Retiro without there being an evacuation plan. The order has relieved hundreds of residents of Cavanilles Street who spent a day in suspense until the agents paralyzed the operation, after 7:00 p.m. The promoters of the transfer, who want to build a parking lot in the block courtyard of those properties, had municipal authorizations to install a huge crane and pass materials over the buildings, but the agents have assumed the responsibility of canceling the transport by the risk for residents, according to neighbors and two opposition councilors who have acted as interlocutors.
The operation had begun at dawn, when the businessmen set up a gigantic crane in the middle of the street that had been used in the construction of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium. The idea of the promoters, from the Madrid company Grupanxon, was to transport a multi-ton machine, a pile driver, over buildings of up to ten floors, which is used to drive piles into the ground in order to provide support for the foundations of the buildings. buildings. The crane had already been connected to the piling machine by means of cables and chains and the machine was going to pass over numbers 23, 25 and 27 on Cavanilles Street. However, the wind of up to 70 kilometers per hour put these plans on hold. A safety sensor on the crane had blocked the device.
In the early afternoon, dozens of neighbors chanted slogans in front of the machinery: “Get out of the crane,” or “Don’t pass by my house!” The neighbors have been fighting for years with the developers, who bought the interior lot in 2016, where there was only vegetation, with the idea of building an underground parking lot for residents with four floors and 220 spaces. Their idea is to satisfy the strong demand for parking space.
Four municipal agents arrived at the site and requested authorizations from the two businessmen promoting the work. They showed a municipal document. A police officer told them that they were finding out if it was legal to transport a machine over an inhabited building. The agent could not believe that such an operation had permission and told the people responsible for the work:
—The person from the City Council who signed that document has been here a while ago and has not shown his face. He hasn’t even seen me. He has left. He said ‘there goes my mother, let the Police show their face’, the agent told the promoters.
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—And who assumes the cost of the 100,000-euro crane standing here? one of the businessmen responded.
—I am a police officer and I have a dilemma, a very serious problem. If I say no, I harm you; If I say yes I harm them.
The document included the names of Virginia Torres Lirola, deputy general director of Mobility Agents in the Urban Planning area, and the general director of circulation management and surveillance, Marta Alonso Anchuelo, also in that area of Government. According to a spokesperson for the delegate of Urban Planning and Mobility, Borja Carabante, the businessmen had also been authorized by the Activities Agency.
A lawyer representing the neighbors, Yolanda García, warned the police that the law prohibits transporting cargo over people. The agents took note of the rule: Royal Decree 836/2003, which regulates the work of cranes.
After hours of tension, with dozens of neighbors stationed at the door of the building, the police informed both parties that they were not going to allow transportation. PSOE councilor Emilia Martínez, who acted as interlocutor, says that the commissioner of the Retiro district told them that after speaking with her superiors and analyzing her permits, he decided to stop. She “she believed that those responsible at the City Council who gave the authorization were not aware of the risk. The document said that they had permission to ‘put the pilot in’, but it did not say how. “They needed a security and evacuation plan that was not there.” Nacho Murgui, a Más Madrid councilor who also spoke with the agents, confirms this version.
As night fell, the promoters unhooked the pilot rig and dismantled the crane. One of the two businessmen, Javier Torres, complained that the crane rental is paid by the hour and said that they would demand compensation from the City Council. “In the end it is the citizen who pays for these things.”
The neighbors celebrated the withdrawal. “This has been a victory,” says one, Miguel de Andrés. However, they fear that their war against the parking project is not over.
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