Streamline the procedures and unify the criteria to be able to act with maximum force in case of occupation of a municipal space. With this aim in mind, Barcelona City Council has just approved an action protocol to remind its staff of how to act when there is illegal occupation of properties owned by them. The protocol defines the steps to be followed and warns that not complying with them can lead to accounting and even criminal responsibilities for the managers of public spaces, be it a warehouse, a premises or a disused building.
The protocol, addressed to all bodies and entities dependent on the City Council that manage real estate owned by the municipality, establishes the guidelines for carrying out "in a coordinated manner and without delay" the actions necessary to defend the municipal interests, "with the aim of to preserve the heritage and to claim damages that may be incurred in property and the municipal treasury", the document details.
Municipal sources assure that there has not been an increase in occupations in their premises, "but it was important to remember and unify the criteria because not all municipal employees know how to act".
The protocol has a dual purpose. On the one hand, the immediate denunciation and the opening of the file with which the unemployment must be initiated. On the other hand, it also aims to prevent occupation situations from consolidating "and becoming a risk for the occupants themselves, for the neighbors or for any third party, given that often the uses registered during the occupations are totally inappropriate for the space".
Occupations in municipally owned housing are excluded from this protocol because there is a specific regulation for these situations. The document urges the Housing Department and the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation to promote the drafting of their own protocol.
The new document can be used by all the bodies and entities dependent on the City Council that are assigned the management of immovable property owned by the municipality, whether public domain or patrimonial. "The regulations already exist, but we detected the need to update content because, for whatever reasons, some workers do not know the procedures and this makes the process slower; for example, the City Council as an administration has legal capacity, it can mobilize the Urban Guard, it does not need judicial authorizations like private owners; we can act and we have the resources to do so".
The protocol also emphasizes that it is the responsibility of municipal employees to try to recover the value of what has been lost during an occupation. The document sets out one by one the regulated actions and procedures, from the notification of an occupation to the confirmation, the identification of the occupants and the verification of whether or not there is a risk situation.
The process materializes with the opening of a file that includes the actions to be taken to recover possession of the goods and to indemnify the City Council from all damages that the occupation may have caused. "All the costs arising from the recovery of possession, the damages that have been detected, the costs of the consumption of water, electricity, gas or other supplies or any other will be included". In this sense, the municipal manager is obliged to require and claim from the occupants all the damages caused by the occupation and also to request all judicial and administrative actions that are necessary.
The protocol, on which the technicians have worked for more than a year, has already been sent to all the municipal managers and legal officers of the City Council.
