Madrid Nuevo Norte launches a consultation process to involve citizens in the design of urbanisation projects

• After successfully tackling a first initiative around Las Tablas Oeste, Madrid Nuevo Norte is launching an ambitious process of citizen participation with different groups. The aim is to have their opinion on future urbanisation projects for the areas of Centro de Negocios-Chamartín and Malmea-San Roque-Tres Olivos.
• This process of citizen consultation is the first of its kind in a project of this scale in Spain. It has begun with a first phase focused on the participation of people with disabilities or ASD, so that the project responds to their needs when it comes to using the city.

Madrid, 15 October 2024. Madrid Nuevo Norte is the largest urban regeneration project in Spain, and it is also the most important of all those carried out in European cities. It has recently launched an ambitious process of citizen consultation in order to find out the opinions and needs of local residents and users, as well as those of different collectives, regarding the use of public space in the city. The objective is to learn about citizens’ sensitivities to incorporate them into the design of the urban development projects that will define what this future neighbourhood in the north of Madrid will be like.

This is the first initiative of its kind in Spain for an urban development project of this magnitude and importance. The project is the culmination of the participatory process carried out during the planning phase of Madrid Nuevo Norte. It also highlights the innovative and socially sustainable vision of this great urban transformation project, which promotes a new type of urban planning that incorporates citizens to build a truly new model of city for the 21st century.

After an initial experience in the area of Las Tablas Oeste, in which more than 500 citizens participated, Madrid Nuevo Norte has activated the citizen consultation processes in two of the other urban areas that constitute this action: Centro de Negocios-Chamartín and Malmea-San Roque-Tres Olivos.

The consultations have started this October and will be extended over the next six months. Different groups will be involved, such as neighbours and users of the area, children, teenagers, the elderly and people with disabilities, among others, so that each of them can express their specific opinions regarding the use of public space.

Subsequently, all the information obtained will be analysed and evaluated in order to be able to integrate the different sensitivities in the development projects before their final approval. But only if they are technically and normatively viable and within the scope of the project.

Participative workshops for people with physical, cognitive and sensory diversity, ASD and family members.

The first stage of these consultation processes has begun this October. It is addressed to people with different disabilities and their relatives or carers and a total of 14 participative workshops will be developed —seven related to Centro de Negocios-Chamartín and another seven for Malmea-San Roque-Tres Olivos. For this purpose, Madrid Nuevo Norte will collaborate with Fundación Juan XXIII. This organisation that has been working for more than 55 years for the social and labour inclusion of people at risk or in a situation of psychosocial vulnerability, especially due to their intellectual disability and/or mental illness, promoting their quality of life, personal autonomy and quality employment.

These workshops follow an accessible participatory methodology that allows to know the opinion of those groups with physical, cognitive and sensory diversity and behavioural disorders (ASD), as well as of their relatives/carers, regarding the needs for specific improvements of the urban space related to their diversity. For this purpose, accessible vocabulary and adapted visual/tactile resources are used. In addition, a multidisciplinary team of architects, psychologists, accessibility experts and sign language interpreters are available for the specific sessions on sensory and hearing disabilities.

‘With these workshops, which are ground-breaking in the approach to urban development in Spain, we aim to have more information on the specific needs of a group that has many difficulties when it comes to using the city. This initiative is part of the vision of how to make Madrid Nuevo Norte a sustainable city. It is also part of this project’s commitment to achieving universal accessibility from the very beginning’, explains CreaMNN’s Social Commitment department, which is the promoter of this initiative.

After these 14 sessions focused on people with disabilities or ASD and their carers and relatives, other consultation processes and participative workshops will be carried out with neighbours and users of those areas bordering Madrid Nuevo Norte. Other sessions will also focus on the views of children and teenagers.

The participation process does not end after the consultations. After studying the different proposals, new meetings are held with all the people who have participated, in order to inform them how their collaboration in the project has been useful, what measures have been adopted thanks to their participation and, in case they have not been incorporated, the technical or regulatory reasons that justify it.

On the other hand, the information obtained after this process can also be used for the possible processing of urban accessibility certifications in public spaces.

Aligned with BREEAM and LEED certifications

In 2021, Madrid Nuevo Norte obtained the LEED for Communities Plan and Design sustainability pre-certification with ‘Gold’ level, as well as the provisional BREEAM ES Urbanismo 2020 certificate, which are the two most prestigious sustainability seals in the world. With this award, Madrid Nuevo Norte became an international ground-breaker, being the first urban development project in Europe to obtain both provisional certificates, which makes it an international inspiration when it comes to sustainable urban development.

In order to obtain these pre-certifications and the definitive ones, the work of citizen participation is fundamental, as both seals value participatory processes very positively. This is why work is always done to ensure that the strategy developed is aligned with the methodology required by both certifications.

First major urban development action in paying attention to citizens

In 2016, Crea Madrid Nuevo Norte, the main private promoter of the Madrid Nuevo Norte project, became the first real estate company in Spain to create a department specifically designed to encourage and facilitate ongoing dialogue and citizen involvement in the project. The company’s goal was to be in contact with the citizens, paying special attention to the neighbours of the adjacent areas with a direct interest in the project. As a result, over the last seven years, spaces for information, reflection, debate and action have been created for those interested in participating in Madrid Nuevo Norte. In addition, all the groups and perspectives that have never been heard have been invited to take part in urban planning.

Up to now, more than 35,000 people have participated in these initiatives for the design of Madrid Nuevo Norte.

As CreaMNN explains: ‘For the first time, an urban planning project of this importance involves citizens in the design of their own city. Those who wish to do so can inform themselves, participate and give their opinions on Madrid Nuevo Norte in a simple, direct and open way’.