This is a CTP of initiative: ICA/COVILPI (Argentina)
This CTP addresses one of the most important milestones in the history of COVILPI. On March 22, 2015, the first building built by the cooperative in La Boca neighborhood was officially inaugurated. The inauguration of the building was the epilogue of 10 years of work that began with the purchase of the property located at the corner of streets Lamadrid and Ministro Brin in 2007.
"The building was built through a system of mutual aid and self-managed organization as a means to achieve the goal of housing, outside the public system and speculation and market profit. The final result, long discussed with the inhabitants, tries to maintain certain conditions of life known to them: a timely relation of access with the outside - the traditional "vestibule" -, own external places of greater dimension than the traditional one and greater freedom in the Relationship between interior environments.”
The building project was carried out with the technical assistance of the renowned architect Jaime Sorín who directed the technical team formed by members of COVILPI and other professionals.
Beyond the concrete achievement of having generated a housing solution for 33 families, the inauguration of the building has a greater value for the members of COVILPI. It is the concrete proof that it is possible to develop a community-based and self-managed project of production of popular habitat despite the limitations offered by legislation and the bureaucracy and disinterestedness of the city government.
This CTP is the result of a long process of co-production that goes back to the first manifestations developed by different neighborhood groups in La Boca in the mid-1990s. From this first experience, some of the members of COVILPI participated in the process of drafting law 341 that gave rise to the Self-management of housing program. This law established a system of credits oriented to the construction of houses through self-managed projects. To this end, it recognized social organizations and cooperatives as subjects of credit.
The building inaugurated in March 2015 was a project presented and registered at the IVC in 2007, a few months before Mauricio Macri assumed the city's head of government. This relationship is significant because during its administration, this type of projects ceased to be part of the housing policy of the city government despite the validity of the law 341. COVILPI completed the project of the 33 homes based on a strategy of cooperation with other organizations and key actors. Among these cooperative relations, the one established with the architect Jaime Sorín and the Faculty of Architecture and urbanism of the University of Buenos Aires, who participated in the process of design and direction of the construction works. For this, a work team was formed that included cooperatives and professionals to complete a process of participatory design of the building.
Relations with other neighborhood organizations were also established to develop mutual cooperation activities and with the Uruguayan Federation of Housing Cooperatives for Mutual Assistance (FUCVAM, in its spanish initials) as a source of advice:
"We call on neighborhood organizations, we organized shows and murga and circus workshops with the Catalinas Sur Theater Group for the forgotten neighbors of this area. And they came. Today they are our friends. We had the permanent expectation of having our home, always. Many neighbors disbelieved and many of our people abandoned the struggle. It was not easy. Tasks were divided according to the times. Plenty of cleaning, heavy, and guards. To take care of what will be. It took many meetings and hours of debate to understand why the huge delays at each step. We would articulate with other Cooperatives and experiences. We contacted FUCVAM and the Uruguayans were the sign that it was possible."
The construction of the first building of COVILPI is the product of 20 years of history with achievements and setbacks. The origins of this trajectory go back to the actions developed by different organizations of the neighborhood of La Boca to stop the massive evictions that threatened numerous tenants and their families in the late 1990s. From that fact and the sanction of the Resolution 525 was advanced in the proposal of a law that promoted access to decent housing through self-management. Thus was approved in 2000 the law 341.
The COVILPI housing cooperative was formally constituted in 2003 to present its own self-managed housing project at the IVC. In 2007 the land where the building was to be built was purchased and the same year the project was presented at the IVC.
In 2007, Mauricio Macri assumed as head of government of the city of Buenos Aires. With its arrival to power there was a significant change in the housing policy in the city. Main reference of the political right in Argentina, the Macri government sought to discourage cooperative projects by financing the IVC and under-executing budget items.
During the years that demanded the construction of the building, the cooperatives had to fight every payment made by the IVC, request intervention to the Justice and mobilized infinite times so that the bureaucracy did not prevent the project to go ahead.
"Macrism does not want us to demonstrate that it is possible to build through popular organization, self-management, and that the dream of housing for the popular sectors in this city is possible ... There is a policy designed to expel this social subject That we are the poor, and that is why they reduce the budgets for social housing year after year. It is increasingly evident that the fires in the neighborhood, which end in deaths and leave families in the streets, have an intentionality: to expel these families from the tourist city."
According to this form of construction stipulated in the IVC, the work progressed and with each certificate of progress of work the corresponding payment was to be collected. But most of the time, these payments were delayed for months, affecting compliance with the planned scheme of work.
With the houses built, the cooperatives that are already inhabiting the building, recognize that the great challenge was to show that it was possible to carry out a project of these characteristics.
Without doubt the concretion of the cooperative housing project was a process anticipated and planned by the members of COVILPI. It was a process of more than ten years in which they were fulfilling goals and solving new emerging problems.
The clearest sign of this level of anticipation was that the project was presented a few months before the change of government in the city. It can be observed that the project managers could anticipate that the conditions could change in a negative way.
Throughout this CTP, COVILPI members recognised had developed multiple learning in technical matters (from articulation with architects and other professionals) and from management (financial resources management). But capacities were also developed to adapt to unfavorable contexts and to know how to coexist with the IVC bureaucracy. A central learning in any project was the generation of cooperative dynamics to produce collectively.
In addition, the experience was not only successful because the construction was completed. He also made it clear that self-managed construction can be efficient. The four-story building built in the form of a cooperative had a cost of 4500 argentinian pesos per square meter, against the 8,000 estimated by the Chamber of Construction.
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