The Consell plans agreements with owners, mixed formulas, and expropriations to acquire the necessary land. Torrent will be one of the first municipalities where these solutions will be applied.
The Generalitat is working on the legal frameworks that will allow the incorporation of private land into the future network of flood parks in the metropolitan area of Valencia. According to sources from the Ministry of Environment, Infrastructure, Territory and Recovery, the aim is to have different formulas to resolve the availability of the land required for each action, as reported by valenciaplaza.com.
The priority will be to reach agreements with landowners to acquire the land. Agreements with individuals are also contemplated so they can maintain ownership of their plots and the activities they carry out on them. This would be the case, for example, of an agricultural landowner whose land is integrated into the metropolitan park system.
When an agreement is not possible, the Generalitat will resort to expropriation. To this end, basic projects will be tendered to facilitate these processes. The Generalitat's budget for 2026 allocated 7 million euros for the first expropriations of the anti-flood corridor and another 2 million for the drafting of technical projects.
The Consell plans to begin processing the first expropriations by the end of this year, with the sectors of Alfafar-La Torre, Paiporta, and Quart de Poblet-Manises among the first areas planned. The presence of agricultural plots and other private land in the area makes the issue of land particularly relevant. In July, the Generalitat and AVA-ASAJA agreed to create a working group to address the acquisition of agricultural land for these actions.
Torrent is one of the first municipalities where this issue will have a concrete application. The incorporation of about four kilometres of the l'Horteta ravine into the network of flood parks will require action on private land. The mayor, Amparo Folgado, explained after her meeting this Thursday with the commissioner for Recovery, Raúl Mérida, that they are dealing with it "person to person" and "metre by metre", as the impact will not be the same on all plots. In some cases, it may be limited to fencing or certain infrastructures on the property.
While progress is made on land availability, the Generalitat is finalising the design of the future network of metropolitan parks. The international landscape design competition that will define the overall design is in its final preparation phase. As explained by Raúl Mérida, the bases will be published "in the coming days".
The procedure has a budget of 6.7 million euros and a jury of twelve members. Five proposals will advance to the final phase, and the winning design will emerge from them, although the final proposal may incorporate elements from the various finalist projects. The expectation is that the competition will be resolved in December.
One of the two first areas to undergo this process is located in Torrent, which will be incorporated into the park layout with the integration of about four kilometres of the l'Horteta ravine, a proposal put forward by the Town Hall itself. The area will include attenuation measures, environmental integration actions, and a cycling and walking route that can also be used as an access route for emergency vehicles.
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