Redeveloping military land into affordable housing through a public-public partnership. The case of Valladolid’s La Rubia barracks

Abstract

This study examines the complex challenges inherent in the public-public partnership established by the Spanish government in 2023 between SEPES and the Ministry of Defence. The primary objective of this partnership is to repurpose decommissioned military sites for affordable housing, thereby fostering socially equitable urban regeneration. The transformation of these areas would necessitate enabling specific institutional aspects of planning governance (i.e. the rules, laws, and procedural requirements), as well as the possibilities opened by community practices and actors (co-)operating within these structural settings. By scrutinise the case of Valladolid’s La Rubia barracks, the research uncovers the complex interplay between the stakeholders involved if ways forward are to be found in challenging the institutional capacity to achieve the public interest.