It is a new initiative to make it easier for owners of abandoned buildings to rehabilitate them for housing
The works at the Carlos III Soccer Field will begin in the first half of August
The Toledo City Consortium is going to launch an initiative to recover private and abandoned buildings in the Historic Quarter in order to convert them into homes. This action will be approved by the next Executive Committee of this municipal organization at the end of July.
According to the mayor of the city, Carlos Velázquez, in an interview with Europa Press, it is a series of measures «that could be revolutionary» in terms of recovering abandoned private buildings in historic centers.
This is an initiative in which the Municipal Housing Company would also intervene for those people who, for example, have inherited homes in the Quarter from their family members, and who now do not live in the city of Toledo, or which are properties of different people «that make it difficult to reach agreements.»
Specifically, the mayor has pointed out that the Municipal Housing Company, together with the Consortium, would carry out the recovery and restoration of these homes to make them attractive so that new neighbors move to live in the Historic Quarter.
2026 ANNIVERSARIES
After assessing that the Council of Ministers has approved declaring the VIII Centenary of the Cathedral of Toledo of ‘exceptional public interest’, he has said that it joins other anniversaries that will be celebrated in the city next year such as the 450 years of the Teatro Rojas or the 40 years since the declaration of Toledo as a World Heritage Site.
All this, Velázquez continued, will make Toledo in 2026 «truly spectacular» in terms of heritage recovery and cultural activities, in addition to the candidacy for the European Capital of Culture. «We are working with great enthusiasm for this year 2026 to leave its mark.»
«In fact, we are working to make Toledo stop being skeptical because we are a city that has been promised a lot — big projects or major actions that were necessary — that had not been done. But we are demonstrating with concrete actions that things can be done and getting the city out of paralysis,» he said.
THREE EXAMPLES
In this sense, he has given three examples such as the Buenavista Senior Center, a project committed to for almost 20 years, with a plot donated for that purpose. «A social service for which a sign was even put up but the reality was that there was nothing.»
He has also mentioned, in the Azucaica neighborhood, the hydraulic infrastructure works, «promised even by ministers of the Government of Spain from the Socialist Party, but that were not carried out. There was no project and the reality was that nothing was done,» he added.
As a third example of infrastructure, he mentioned the Carlos III soccer field. A stadium that was demolished 17 years ago «and was never heard of again» and where «we will now have a new field that is not only a sports facility but will also generate a significant improvement in the city’s self-esteem.»