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Can Sanpere association and the City Council reach an agreement to start the expropriation before the end of the legislature.
This Friday Can Sanpere and Premià de Mar City Council signed an agreement according to which the City Council will convene this mandate (before the elections), the session of the Board to approve the initial expropriation file of Can Sanpere’s property. The occupation of the factory will end in May, after the municipal council approves the budgetary allocation for the start of the expropriation and the Board begins the expropriation process.
The outcome of the conflict coincides with the tenth anniversary of the occupation and self-management and the twenty-fifth of the neighborhood struggle for Can Sanpere. The agreement includes the start of the expropriation process, as well as the collective’s return to the factory once it has been refurbished. Meanwhile, the City Council cedes to the assembly of Can Sanpere a municipal space so as not to stop the social and cultural activity of the organisation.
After 25 years of struggle, 10 years of occupation and many hours of negotiation, Can Sanpere association (with more than 400 members, created to be able to have a negotiating instrument) has reached an agreement with the City Council that appears in the agreement between both parties in which the following points are agreed, mainly:
• That the expropriation process will begin in this legislature
• That the association of Can Sanpere will have priority in the use of the factory space, once it belongs to the City Council, to develop a model of community management.
• That the City Council give an alternative space where they can continue with the activities while the rehabilitation and demolition works of Can Sanpere are carried out.
• That working groups will monitor the works of Can Sanpere and the future use of the space with the participation of members of the association.
Can Sanpere is an old textile factory of more than 9,000m2, owned until today by Núñez y Navarro, one of the great speculative companies in Catalonia. On April 3, 2013, a group of neighbors decided to enter and occupy the factory before the threat of demolishing, in what was considered a historical monument.
Since then, the assembly of Can Sanpere has demanded the expropriation of the property, as well as the protection of part of the factory, the creation of a green area and the transfer of use of the protected space for community management by the organisation. During all these years, there have been several small victories towards this outcome, such as the yes victory in the popular consultation on expropriation in 2014 and the protection of the BCIL and the of the area listed as green space.
During all these years of struggle and defense of space, Can Sanpere suffered an eviction in 2017. The following year, the assembly returned to recover the factory, and since then another four launches have been resisted. Since 2013, Can Sanpere has been home to dozens of social, political and cultural groups, not only from Premià de Mar but also from the entire Maresme region and even other initiatives from the Catalan Countries and the Spanish State.
The case of Can Sanpere is similar to that of Can Batlló (Sants, Barcelona) or Coma Cros (Salt, Gironès), factory sites that have been saved from real estate speculation thanks to the neighbourhood struggle and are now under community management.
It’s been almost a year (May 2022) since femProcomuns cooperative, by an agreement of our Trunk assembly, decided to support Can Sanpere and join the community management project as an organisation. Today, we share the satisfaction that this project is already becoming a reality.
