The municipality, currently home to around 18,800 inhabitants, projects reaching 26,000 residents within two decades, according to forecasts from the Institut d’Estadística de Catalunya (Idescat). To accommodate this growth, the City Council is working on updating its Municipal Urban Planning Plan (POUM), aiming to approve an initial draft before the end of the current term.
The Mayor of Torredembarra, Raúl García, explained that the current plan, dating from 2002, has been minimally executed, with only about 1,200 of the planned 7,300 homes built. To accommodate new residences, the town must transition from a garden city model, characterized by single-family homes and green spaces, to a more concentrated model featuring apartment blocks. Currently, half of the total 15,000 homes are second residences.
The new POUM will examine aspects such as mobility, facilities, green spaces, and demographic evolution, aiming for "better" growth and promoting affordable and social housing. The Councilor for Urbanism, Javier Perellón, highlighted the difficulty for young people to access housing, parking issues, especially in summer, and internal connectivity challenges, although external links are good.
Ignacio Sainz, an urban planning technician from the contracted company Deurza, noted that the garden city model "is no longer appropriate" and the focus should shift to "smaller, block-based" housing. He also pointed out imbalances in facilities that need to be "standardized".
In parallel, a citizen participation process has been launched. Residents can provide input through an informational session on July 8th at the Espai Cultural Sala de Mar, an online survey at torredembarra.cat/avançdepoum, and participatory map activities using stickers at various municipal facilities between July 20th and September 13th.
