About 40km south of Madrid, just off the motorway to Toledo, its towerblocks rise from the parched, yellow plain like a futuristic vision from a wild west film. Seseña was supposed to be the Manhattan of La Mancha, with 13,000 apartments housing 40,000 people in a new suburban paradise.
Today, with fewer than half the apartments built, several blocks lying empty and foundations for others abruptly abandoned, it’s a scar on the Castilian landscape – and Spain’s most striking testament to its housing market crash.
A herd of goats scurries across the dusty road leading to the 5,100-unit complex – construction on promised infrastructure, including a slip-road from the motorway, has long been abandoned – in a reminder that this was until recently a small country town with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.
Controversial billionaire developer Francisco Hernando – nicknamed El Pocero, or Mr Drains, because he used to clean sewers – named the residential complex in the new satellite town after himself, in gold lettering at the entrance.
Today each of his buildings bears the name of a bank. When the housing bubble burst, and following a protracted dispute with the local mayor, Hernando handed 2,000 apartments over to the financial institutions.
Knock-down prices
Many were sold at knock-down prices compared to the original sums paid for the first 3,000 units. Others were rented out by the banks with an option for tenants to buy. The move boosted the zone's population, giving the lie to the highly publicised claim that this is a ghost town, say residents.
The media have got it all wrong, says Antonio Lopez (40), a father of two young children who moved to Seseña four years ago. A computer engineer, he worked for IBM in Madrid until last year, when he said “goodbye to all that” and set up a convenience grocery store on the ground floor of one of the apartment buildings.
“They say it is a ghost town, but here people are living inside the complex. They have swimming pools, basketball courts, everything they need – it’s not like in Madrid where you have to go out into the street to live. Here, we live at home.”
Last Saturday afternoon, however, with only a handful of people walking through the vast conurbation, with most ground-floor units bricked over instead of their intended use as shops, and with no sign of any restaurants or cafes, it was difficult to accept his argument. The shutters remained tightly closed on even those buildings with a supposed 70 per cent occupancy rate.
Both kinds of residents – those who bought early and those who snapped up a bargain – appear keen to put an optimistic face on things despite the lack of services and infrastructure.
Advantages
Residents say there are many advantages to living here: spacious, high-spec apartments; lots of light and streets wider than in Madrid; peace and quiet; and proximity to the capital.
“Our apartment is terrific,” enthuses Lydia Carrasco (39), a mother of two and one of a few people shopping at the handful of Saturday market stalls on the edge of the complex. “We live in the Banco de Santander building, and we’re delighted with it,” she says, sheltering under an awning from the dead heat of the afternoon.
“The materials used are of the highest quality, and we got it for much less than half price. And the bank gave us 100 per cent financing. There was a queue all through the night to get the apartments. We were very lucky,” says Carrasco, who works for the rail network.
Newspapers at the time headlined with stories on how, for €65,000 for a two-bedroom apartment measuring 94sq m, the bank was “giving away” homes because the materials alone cost €60,000.
Carrasco concedes that services could be better, but is optimistic that one day things will improve. “This is an emerging area. We do need better transport – there’s a bus, but it doesn’t come all that often – and it would be good to have restaurants and shops. But we’re just a short drive from the old town of Seseña, and you have everything there.”
Sergio Martín, a father of three young girls, says there are now 700 children attending the on-site primary school. “It’s ideal – it’s very close, and there are now lots of children here in the community,” he says.
The mayor who took over at Seseña in 2006, after the project had been voted through, accused Hernando of corrupting councillors – allegations Hernando denied – but no criminal charges were laid.
Today, as an early autumn breeze kicks up dust around the 26 apartment blocks, there is no indication that building at Seseña will resume, or that El Pocero will be back. It is a stark vestige of a building binge that Spain, like Ireland, is coming to bitterly regret.
