The Getafe Plenary will approve a reinterpretation of the PGOU that allows for a reduction in parking spaces in large public facilities, starting with the future Civic and Sports Centre of Los Molinos.
The Getafe City Council will greenlight a new interpretation of Article 170 of the Urban Planning Regulations of the PGOU that will allow for a reduction in the number of parking spaces in large public infrastructure. The first project to benefit from this relaxation will be the Civic and Sports Centre in the Los Molinos neighbourhood, a community demand that has been on the table for years.
The measure, which will be put to a vote in the next municipal Plenary, responds to a paradigm shift in urban mobility. Instead of building massive parking lots that encourage the use of private cars, the Getafe council is opting to prioritise public transport and intermodality. According to municipal sources, the new regulations will allow the provision of spaces to be considered adequate if the activity is integrated into a high-capacity intermodal network, such as Metrosur, Cercanías, or urban bus lines.
A more sustainable city model
The Los Molinos neighbourhood, where the new civic and sports centre will be located, meets these requirements abundantly. The area has Metrosur stops and several bus lines that connect to the centre of Getafe and other municipalities in the metropolitan south. Additionally, the Cercanías station of Getafe Central is less than a 15-minute walk away. This, according to municipal technicians, justifies a significant reduction in the initially planned parking spaces.
The new criterion is based on mobility and traffic studies that demonstrate that, in well-established and well-connected urban environments, the demand for large parking lots is not only unnecessary but counterproductive. “The aim is to prevent an increase in vehicles in the neighbourhoods and make the city more liveable,” explain those from the Urban Planning department. The measure also responds to a historical demand from the residents of Los Molinos, who have been calling for such a facility for years without the high construction costs of a large parking lot making it viable.
More space for citizen use
Thanks to this relaxation, the project for the Civic and Sports Centre of Los Molinos will be able to allocate more space to green areas, leisure areas, and sports facilities, rather than to parking spaces. The council expects that the works can be tendered before the end of the year, once the Plenary definitively approves the modification of the PGOU. The residents of the neighbourhood, who have closely followed the process, have expressed their satisfaction with the progress of a project they consider “key to revitalising the area.”
The measure will not only affect Los Molinos. The Getafe City Council plans to apply these same criteria to future public infrastructures in other parts of the city, such as the new cultural centre in El Bercial or the expansion of the La Alhóndiga sports centre. “Getafe consolidates a model of scaled urban planning, addressing the distances of the neighbourhoods themselves and the actual use of space by residents,” municipal sources state. The initiative has been well received by opposition political groups, although some have requested that it be ensured that the reduction of spaces does not create parking problems in already strained areas.
In any case, the City Council emphasises that the relaxation is not automatic: each project must justify its reduction with a specific mobility and accessibility study. This ensures that the measure is not applied indiscriminately, but only in those cases where public transport and intermodality make it viable. For the Los Molinos centre, the decision has already been made: fewer cars and more space for people.
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