Between the Sant Andreu cemetery and the old Heron City shopping center –now SOM Multiespai–, Can Valent is hidden, a symbol of popular demand. The old Nou Barris farmhouse has long been claimed for decades by the residents of the Porta neighborhood to be rehabilitated and transformed into a facility. The building became municipal property in 1985 after a construction company wanted to tear it down, and in the 1990s a campaign began to reform it for public use. Since then the mandates and projects have passed, but its remodeling has not materialized, while the deterioration of the mansion has increased, and today it is in a dilapidated state, with its roof collapsed.
Neighborhood fighting and persistence will finally pay off. The City Council has recently approved initially in a government commission the technical project for the structural consolidation and restoration of the property, with a budget of just over one million euros.
The rehabilitation, budgeted at one million euros, will promote a green axis in the surroundings
Municipal sources detail that the forecast is to tender the work this fall and execute it throughout 2022. “It will be a complete rehabilitation intervention, maintaining the heritage requirements,” adds the Consistory. The farmhouse, of about 500 meters and with a heritage level C as an asset of urban interest, will maintain its classic volumetry of ground floor, first floor and attic. The building would have been built on a medieval defense tower and dates from the 17th century, according to the City Council’s catalog of architectural heritage.
Regarding the uses of the future equipment, a participatory process will be promoted but the idea would be that it somehow be related to the ecology, agriculture and the rural past of the neighborhood. Among some proposals there is an environmental classroom, a horticulture school and to house part or, if possible, the entire extensive Historical Archive of Roquetes-Nou Barris.
“The farmhouse is a jewel, perhaps it is the oldest monument in the neighborhood. It’s a shame in the current situation. It is necessary to fix the building because otherwise it will end up collapsing ”, warns Cayetano Morales, treasurer of the neighborhood association of the Porta neighborhood. The reform of the property was one of the most voted projects in the participatory budgets and was also included in the agreement between the municipal government and ERC to allocate 30 million to investments in the districts.
Next to the farmhouse, a community garden for vulnerable families and unemployed people has been consolidated for years. Within the framework of the Buits plan –initiative that makes empty plots available to non-profit organizations-, the Nou Barris assembly of unemployed promotes this space in collaboration with the Porta residents’ association and the Porta’m a l entities. ‘Hort, Platform 500×20, Federació Transforma Porta y Salut i Agroecologia.
The people who make this place more dynamic have designed another project to surround the surroundings of Can Valent with green with an urban agricultural park on Pintor Alsamora street, where there is now a temporary parking lot. “It would be a green axis that would run from Paseo Verdum to Can Dragó park with more orchards, an edible forest and an area for activities aimed at families and children”, highlights Morales, also a member of the assembly of unemployed in Nou Barris. The proposal has been one of those selected from the participatory budgets and is endowed with 700,000 euros. The forecast is that it will be developed after the completion of the expected and claimed remodeling of Can Valent.
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