The document to be signed by the Port Authority and Seville City Council includes the exchange of the fairground land corresponding to the Port’s former railway route
It also provides for a €2.1 million investment by the Port Authority for a Civic Centre on Avenida de Las Razas
The Board of Directors of the Seville Port Authority (APS) has today approved the urban planning agreement to be signed by the Port Authority and Seville City Council with the aim of speeding up the processing and implementation of the amendment to Seville’s General Urban Development Plan (PGOU) in the ARI-DBP-08 area, on the eastern side of Avenida de Las Razas.
These lands represent an area of enormous opportunity for the city. They will bring together open spaces, green and landscaped areas, socio-cultural and educational facilities, as well as residential uses, including both free-market and protected housing, and economic activity. Located opposite the Las Razas warehouses and in the surroundings of the Urban Port District, this area will reduce its buildability by 30% following the approval of the urban planning amendment, encouraging greater openness between the city and the dock.
The agreement approved today is the result of joint work and consensus between both administrations to promote port-city developments. Among the measures envisaged, the exchange of the April Fair grounds owned by the APS for development rights in the ARI-DBP-08 Avenida de Las Razas area stands out. Specifically, the fairground land located on port public domain corresponds to the Port’s former railway route and runs parallel to Avenida Juan Pablo II.
The agreement also provides for a €2.1 million contribution from the Port Authority for local facilities in the area. This investment will make it possible to create a Civic Centre in the building known as “La Casa de los Estibadores”, responding to one of the neighbourhood proposals gathered during the participatory process for the preparation of the Master Plan for the Urban Port District.
Regarding the current public facility plots within ARI-DBP-08 occupied by the Punta del Verde Secondary School, the Corpus Christi School and the Andalusian Scientific Computing Centre, the agreement establishes that they will continue to maintain their current use. To this end, the Seville Port Authority will transfer these plots to Seville City Council free of charges.
Greater Permeability And Connectivity
The ARI-DBP-08 area is currently made up of a succession of warehouses and storage buildings that separate the city from the new Urban Port District. Once the amendment to the PGOU has been approved, these lands will reduce their buildability by 30%, from 137,000 m² of floor area to 98,000 m², and will move from a classification of Advanced Services to residential and tertiary uses.
The reduction in overall buildability will make it possible to eliminate the barrier effect along Avenida de Las Razas and promote physical and visual permeability between the city and the dock, while also helping to enhance the value of the 1929 warehouses and port sheds.
The new planning framework will improve cross-connectivity, prioritise pedestrian space and east-west connections, and preserve the existing natural heritage.
To this end, the area will be structured around a general system of open spaces that completes the head of the Guadaíra Park, as well as a local system that recovers the former square of the 1929 Exhibition. It also proposes widening Avenida de Las Razas with broader pavements, strengthening the intersection of Páez de Ribera and Avenida de Las Razas as an “access gateway” to the area, and preserving the existing socio-cultural facilities.
