Both recalled that Teruel Mayor Emma Buj linked the launch of this project to the formation of the regional government, which took office last April. Several months later, the announced tendering process has still not taken place.
LACK OF STUDENT HOUSING
Regional lawmaker Pilar Buj argued that the residence could provide housing for some of the students arriving in Teruel, at a time when the city is facing a serious shortage of rental housing. “Year after year, university and higher-level vocational enrolments are lost because students cannot stay and live in Teruel, because they cannot even find a miserable room to share,” she explained.
Buj recalled that the residence would have 76 rooms, four of them adapted for people with reduced mobility, as well as a youth hostel with 52 places and 12 independent-living units for vulnerable or formerly state-cared-for young people. The lawmaker stressed the importance of these resources following the introduction of the Medicine degree and, later, the Aerospace Engineering degree. “Where are all these students going to stay? What do they plan to do with them?” she asked.
The Teruel Existe lawmaker directly pointed to Aragon Vice President Alejandro Nolasco as responsible for carrying out the project and called on him to set out the deadlines. “Mr Nolasco, who says he cares so much about young people and Teruel, should prove it and make the Luis Buñuel residence a reality again,” she said. “At this point, we will settle for seeing results. We do not want any more photo opportunities.”
A COMMITMENT MADE IN MARCH
For her part, provincial lawmaker and Teruel Existe councillor on Teruel City Council Beatriz Redón recalled that Teruel Mayor Emma Buj announced at the March municipal plenary session that, once the regional government had been formed, the project tendering process would begin. As she explained at the time, the Government of Aragon would assume an investment of more than three million euros to promote cooperation between the two administrations.
“The regional government is now up and running. We are asking for the cooperation that must exist between the City Council and the Government of Aragon to become a reality,” Redón said. She regretted that the residence has been closed since 2012 and that its reopening has not materialized throughout all these years.
