The board of directors of Lleida’s municipal urban agenda company, the Empresa Municipal d’Agenda Urbana (EMAU), has approved a surface right over the municipal plot at number 20 of Francesc Bordalba i Montardit street, in Torre Salses, in favour of the social housing developer Llogueralia Catalunya SL. The site will hold 88 officially protected homes for affordable rent, according to the Paeria’s statement. The plot covers 5,916 square metres. The transfer runs for 75 years, according to the presentation of the project in May.

The agreement is not yet final. The council statement itself specifies that it is conditional on a favourable report from the Generalitat department responsible for local government. The statement adds that the building will be used for affordable rent or for other temporary forms of transfer of use.

Monthly rents will range between 365 euros and 478 euros, according to the council statement, which presents them as approximate and refers to the conditions announced when the project was presented.

A plot from the municipal estate

The plot is part of the municipal land and housing estate, according to the Paeria, and is registered in the Generalitat’s public reserve of building plots. The surface right will allow the social developer to build the block and then manage the rentals, again according to the statement.

The plot remains in municipal ownership. La Vanguardia described it this way in May: the surface right over the municipally owned plot will be transferred to the Girona-based company for 75 years.

Llogueralia is the social housing developer of Grup Rubau, according to the Paeria, SEGRE and La Vanguardia. The company will handle the construction and the management of the rentals, according to the council’s May statement, which presents the operation as a public-private partnership.

Grup Rubau’s executive director, Joaquim Bordoy, recalled in May other affordable developments by the company in Catalonia, according to La Vanguardia: 110 homes recently opened in Calafell and 132 flats in Reus due to be completed in September. That newspaper describes him as corporate director; the Paeria and SEGRE, as executive director.

What the building will look like

The development includes 76 two-bedroom homes and 12 three-bedroom homes, according to the October council statement. Floor areas will range from 55 to 72 square metres, again according to the Paeria.

SEGRE gave a different breakdown in May, based on explanations from a representative of the builder. According to that newspaper, the 76 two-bedroom flats will measure between 55 and 72 square metres and the 12 three-bedroom flats 80 square metres each. La Vanguardia spoke of flats of between 55 and 80 square metres. The council statement does not give the size of the three-bedroom homes separately.

The building will have a ground floor and three upper floors, according to La Vanguardia. Ground-floor flats will have gardens, and there will be landscaped communal areas and an underground car park for 50 vehicles, according to SEGRE. Solar panels will be installed on the roof to create the building’s own energy community. The energy generated will be shared directly among residents to cut their electricity bills, according to La Vanguardia. The developers estimate that the building will house between 200 and 300 people.

The price per square metre is the one set by law for affordable rented housing. In Lleida it ranges between 6.68 euros and 6.8 euros per usable square metre, company representatives told SEGRE. La Vanguardia reported that the homes will follow the scales of the Catalan Housing Agency, which sets an approximate price of about 6.80 euros per usable square metre, subject to official annual updates.

What was announced in May

The project was presented on 12 May. That day the Paeria’s statement already said that EMAU had transferred the plot for 75 years through the Generalitat’s public reserve of building plots. The formal approval of the surface right by the board is what the October statement now reports, and it is still pending the Generalitat’s report.

At that presentation, the builder planned to start work at the end of the year, according to the Paeria. SEGRE specified that the company expected to have all permits before the end of the year and to take two years to build, so the block would be finished between the end of 2028 and early 2029. La Vanguardia put the end of the works in 2029.

The mayor, Fèlix Larrosa, defended the partnership with the private company at the time. He said the area was one of the most important housing reserves in the whole city, allowing the council to act directly without waiting for the approval of the POUM master plan or any planning change, according to the council statement.

He summed up the approach to SEGRE in another way: the council has the land and must make it easy for developers to build. Larrosa added, according to that newspaper, that the municipal government wants to be among the first to emerge from the situation of housing market stress. He told La Vanguardia that the sum of developments will create that connecting effect and will end up generating neighbourhood life. That newspaper adds that the mayor guaranteed a swift processing of the licence.

Bordoy, for the company, spoke of a project shared with the council. He said the City Council, EMAU and Llogueralia had worked together to solve the problems and take the first step towards an excellent development with very high quality and energy efficiency standards, according to the Paeria. None of the sources explains which problems he was referring to.

Deputy mayor Begoña Iglesias urged companies in the sector, according to SEGRE, to take advantage of the current good relationship between the Paeria, the Generalitat and the State to build housing in Lleida. The Paeria quotes her saying that increasing the housing supply in Lleida is an absolute priority for this government. The district councillor for Els Mangraners and La Bordeta, Roberto Pino, also attended the event, according to the council statement.

Torre Salses, between La Bordeta and Els Mangraners

Torre Salses is the area between La Bordeta and Els Mangraners, which has been urbanised for years, according to the Paeria. La Vanguardia identifies it as sector SUR-42. It is the same area where the future Promenade Lleida shopping and leisure centre will be built, according to SEGRE and La Vanguardia.

Larrosa described it as a strategic sector for the future of Lleida, according to La Vanguardia, not only because of the retail park but above all because of the residential growth expected in the coming years. He told SEGRE that Torre Salses holds one of the largest reserves of residential land in Lleida.

The mayor argued that the operation will improve the connection between La Bordeta and Els Mangraners, and between these districts and the city centre, with the forthcoming widening of the Víctor Torres road, included in planning since 1999, according to the council statement.

The figures for plots sold to private buyers do not match across sources. According to SEGRE, Larrosa said 12 municipal plots had already been awarded for detached houses in the sector. The Paeria’s statement on the same day speaks of around twenty plots for detached houses sold to private buyers in SUR-42.

The figures of the municipal housing plan

The Torre Salses development is part of the municipal plan to promote up to 800 affordable homes in the city by transferring public land, according to La Vanguardia. The Paeria said in May that it had made land available to social developers to build about 800 affordable homes.

At that presentation, Larrosa cited other measures: the 95 % reduction in IBI property tax to speed up the construction of affordable housing and the request to release Sareb land to build up to 508 homes, according to the council statement. The mayor told La Vanguardia that the council was still negotiating with Sareb and had asked the Generalitat to intercede, saying the council was ready to manage those plots to provide more affordable housing.

Larrosa also said that close to a thousand homes were being built or about to be built in Lleida, according to the Paeria. In SEGRE the figure appears as 1,000 homes under construction across the city.

What else EMAU approved

At the same meeting, the EMAU board was briefed on the municipal company’s latest flat purchases, according to the statement. Since the previous session, EMAU added several homes to its estate through pre-emption rights and other means. Eight of them are in La Mariola, within the Urban Improvement Plan (PMU), on Cardenal Cisneros, Júpiter, Mart and Músic Vivaldi streets, among others.

The La Mariola PMU covers eleven buildings with 435 homes, according to the Paeria. EMAU expects to have close to fifty municipal homes in the neighbourhood by the end of the year, according to the statement.

The board also approved the tender conditions to sell a second batch of 20 parking spaces in the car park at number 1 of Guillem de Beziers street. They are spaces 145 to 164, on the first floor, and are part of the 80 spaces the municipal company owns in that car park. The sale continues the procedure opened in July 2026 for a first batch of 28 spaces in the same facility. That agreement is also conditional on a favourable report from the Generalitat, according to the statement.

What is not on record

Neither the council statement nor the reports by SEGRE and La Vanguardia say whether Llogueralia will pay the council any fee for the surface right or what EMAU receives in return over the 75 years.

Nor is there any record of the building’s construction cost, whether the developer will receive public aid, who will select the tenants, under what access requirements or for how long the affordable rents must be maintained. None of the three sources explains what the other temporary forms of transfer of use mentioned by the Paeria consist of.

It is not on record whether the building licence has been applied for or granted, nor when the Generalitat will issue the report on which the agreement depends. The sources do not include the position of the opposition groups on the council.

What comes next

The EMAU agreement will take effect once the Generalitat department responsible for local government issues its favourable report, according to the council statement. From then on, Llogueralia will have to obtain the permits and build. In May, the company estimated two years of works, with the building completed between the end of 2028 and early 2029, according to SEGRE.

Sources and verification

The October council statement does not give the date of the board meeting. It has not been possible to verify the text of the agreement or the surface right contract, which are not published in the sources. The floor areas of the three-bedroom flats differ between the Paeria, SEGRE and La Vanguardia, and the number of detached-house plots awarded differs between SEGRE and the Paeria; the text sets out each source’s version.