The first stone was laid today for the 53 new public homes on the site of the former Trinitat Vella prison, in the district of Sant Andreu. The flats will rehouse families affected by the urban regeneration project in this area, who currently live in precarious housing conditions. This is the second project to be started at this site after work got under way on an initial block of 41 homes at the end of 2022.

The municipal investment for the project is 12.1 million euros, which comes in addition to the 8.2 million invested in the first project. The plan is for the first 41 flats to be completed in the final quarter of 2024 and these 53 flats to be completed in the second quarter of 2026.

Once the prison is demolished, the second stage of the first project will be completed with another 35 homes, bringing the total number of flats for rehousing families in Trinitat Vella to 129. Both the blocks are the result of the agreement with the Catalan government in 2021 to transfer the former prisons of Wad-Ras and Trinitat Vella to the Zona Franca.

What will the flats be like?

The new block of 53 homes will have an inner yard to act as a public space, with the building’s four foyers also located there. Forty of the flats will be three-bedroom homes with between 74 and 79 sqaure metres of floor space; nine will have two bedrooms and have between 58 and 66 square metres, and four will be four-bedroom homes of between 81 and 89 square metres.

The building has been designed to have a low energy demand. The project also features aspects to make the homes healthier, such as the use of non-toxic materials.