Ciutat Vella's new plan of permitted uses reopens the debate on tourism in Barcelona

Jaume Collboni’s government has secured the proposal’s approval in committee with Junts’ support. The official idea is to better organise commerce, curb activities that have proliferated in recent years and provide more tools to control repetitive businesses or those with little connection to neighbourhood life, such as cannabis shops, nail salons, tourist supermarkets or mobile-accessory shops.

The new text introduces more criteria than the previous plan. It considers not only the type of activity, but also the density of businesses in each area, street widths and the maximum size of premises. It also incorporates two especially sensitive axes: la Rambla and Via Laietana, spaces where each commercial opening has an immediate impact on the urban landscape.

The problem is that the political interpretation is far from shared. Comuns and ERC warn that the new regulation may open the door to more tourist pressure, more nightlife and more visitor-oriented businesses. They fear that, under the idea of making uses more flexible, the district will end up losing even more everyday commerce and pushing out activity that is useful to residents.

From the municipal government, Albert Batlle defends precisely the opposite. The deputy mayor and councillor for Ciutat Vella maintains that the plan does not liberalise commerce, but regulates it more precisely and makes it possible to protect diversity of uses better. In his view, the district needs to avoid both tourist monoculture and the absolute blocking of new activities.

Junts has justified its support with a similar argument: the previous plan did not succeed in halting the proliferation of low-added-value businesses and a more refined rule was needed. For the left-wing opposition, however, the risk is that this new flexibility will end up benefiting nightclubs, scooter rentals, cannabis shops or establishments open 24 hours a day.

The debate is not new. Ciutat Vella has had six use plans in three decades, a fairly clear sign of how difficult it is to regulate Barcelona’s historic centre. Every attempt comes with the same promise — to balance economic activity and neighbourhood life — and the same underlying fear: that tourism will once again prevail over the neighbourhood.

On streets where residents, hotels, terraces, tourist flats, traditional shops and thousands of daily visitors coexist, any regulatory change is felt quickly. It is not only about which business opens in an empty premises, but what kind of city is built at street level: one intended to be lived in every day or one designed almost entirely to be consumed in passing.