Arroyomolinos (Madrid)

Arroyomolinos is a municipality in Spain located to the southwest of the Community of Madrid. As of January 1, 2022, its population was 34,833 inhabitants; in recent years the municipality has evolved from a rural configuration to that typical of a commuter town, as it has experienced significant demographic growth. Its term is partially included in the Regional Park of the middle course of the Guadarrama River and its surroundings.

Toponymy

The first name by which Arroyomolinos was known was that of Chozas Arroyo de Molinos or Shacks of the Arroyo de los Molinos. Both names refer to the mills that stood on the banks of the Arroyo de Los Combos as it passed through the municipality and of which some vestiges remain.

Geography

Natural environment

The municipality is located within the Community of Madrid, in the southwest area. The undeveloped land is mostly used as farmland or private farms. As for the relief, it is made up of hills in its entirety, except in the vicinity of the streams. It is boxed in around the Arroyo de los Combos, a tributary of the Guadarrama River that rises in a neighboring town, and its own tributaries and boulevards, which gives the town an irregular configuration. The unevenness reaches 70 meters between the lowest and highest parts of the town.

Neighborhoods

The town is divided according to the topography of the land, separated from each other by streams and their corresponding parks. In the south is the old town and the first urbanizations. In the north, Las Castañeras and Ciudad Jardín. In the east is the neighborhood of Zarzalejo. The old town is in the shape of a square and is surrounded by three streams. To the northwest, the Arroyo de los Combos, to the northeast, the Arroyo Moraleja Mayor. To the southwest, the Arroyo Moraleja Menor.

In the north are the neighborhoods of Las Castañeras and Ciudad Jardín, articulated around the avenues of Las Castañeras and Avenida Unión Europea (Bulevar), respectively. They are neighborhoods of chalets and apartment blocks or duplexes with a maximum of four floors. The axes of both neighborhoods act as commercial streets. Avenida Unión Europea is one of the exits to the A-5 highway (Autovía del Suroeste), an alternative to the M-413 highway, popularly known as "the road of curves", since it has to overcome continuous hills along its path. This area is separated from the old town by the Arroyo de los Combos.

In the east is the Zarzalejo neighborhood and the El Bosque urbanization, separated from the old town by the Moraleja Mayor stream. The El Bosque urbanization was built when the town began its expansion, starting in the 80s and is made up of individual chalets. Zarzalejo, however, is an area of chalets and apartment blocks. The lower area stands out, next to Arroyo de los Combos, which houses the Municipal Auditorium, a sports center, the La Dehesa Aquatic Center, the Main Post of the Civil Guard of Arroyomolinos-Humanes, and the fairgrounds where the Corpus Christi Festivities are held..

Ribera de San Pedro

On the banks of the Guadarrama River, and bordering the municipalities of Móstoles and Navalcarnero, there has been a settlement on the so-called Paseo Ribera de San Pedro since the 1950s. It consists of fifty orchards and low houses that are located on land belonging to the river basin (from 5 to 100 meters from the riverbed). The Arroyomolinos City Council has been collecting the Property Tax (previously called Cadastre) since 1986, and even offered medical services and garbage collection for many years. Now, when the urban developments find a problem in this settlement, the City Council does not offer any service to the residents. The Tagus Hydrographic Confederation, for its part, recognizes the existence of rights acquired by the "owners", which must be evaluated and compensated by the City Council and the Autonomous Community, according to a recent statement. Access to this area is done next to the Guadarrama river bridge, on the A-5 motorway, having to be done in a dangerous way as there is no acceleration or deceleration lane from the motorway itself.

History

Old Town House

The origin of Arroyomolinos is a subject that brings controversy, especially as a result of the discovery of numerous Roman remains in the municipality (Los Pelicanos Site, Zarzalejo Site...). However, these have not yet been investigated in depth, which has been denounced on occasions by the political opposition in the municipality

According to the website of the Arroyomolinos City Council, the town was founded during the Muslim invasion, to be later reconquered by King Alfonso VI of León in his advance towards the decisive reconquest of Toledo (1085). At that time, the place was known by the name of Chozas del Arroyo. Likewise, it indicates that other sources consider that the town was founded in the year 1400, with the same name. It was during those same years when Pedro I of Castilla granted Diego Gómez de Toledo the privilege of repopulating the municipality of Arroyomolinos with 80 inhabitants.

Modern Consistorial House

Around 1476, Juan de Oviedo took possession of the town and ordered the construction of a tower, known in recent times as Torreón de Arroyomolinos or Torre del Pan. When in that year, Gonzalo Chacón besieged Arroyomolinos to fight Oviedo, the Torreón had not yet been completed, so it was the latter who ordered its completion.

Late 19th century and early XX, the Torreón was used as a barn on its first two floors and as a dovecote on the remaining three. The rewalling of the holes in the upper floors to control birds dates from this period, and it was also then that the parapet and battlements of the roof were razed, in order to build the more than 4,000 nests that the tower once had. In response to the magnum opus "Geographical-statistical-historical dictionary of Spain and its overseas possessions" of the statesman and politician Pascual Madoz, Arroyomolinos had just 30 simple houses built in the mid-XIX century. Likewise, it had a town hall, a jail, a primary school (attended by 10 children and also endowed with 1,100 rs. from public funds), a parish dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady and a public drinking water fountain that was It was located in the vicinity of the aforementioned Torreón.

The crops that were produced in the town and later marketed with neighboring towns (mainly Móstoles) were based on wheat, barley, oats, rye, chickpeas, carob, peas and broad beans. It should be added that sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, horses and mules were kept. According to Madoz, the surrounding streams allowed the population of Arroyomolinos to generate good fields of crops and have a productive economy, although still rudimentary.

Despite its proximity to the Extremadura motorway, it was not greatly affected by the population growth of the 1970s that affected other towns in its surroundings, such as Móstoles or Fuenlabrada. However, at the beginning of the XXI century, the high price of housing in Madrid, together with its scarce previous urban development, has opened the doors to real estate speculation and has promoted demographic development, multiplying its population in recent years (see Demography and Urbanism).

Demographics

The municipality of Arroyomolinos remained a relatively small village of rural activity, so much so in the mid-centuryXIX only had 82 inhabitants, until the end of the nineties, when a process of demographic and urban growth began coinciding with the beginning of the so-called real estate bubble. In this process the plan of the Regional Government Garden City will be decisive.

Urbanism

At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new century, the municipality of Arroyomolinos experienced significant urban growth that has multiplied its population tenfold since 1996. This development was mainly framed within the Urban Plan known as Ciudad Jardín-Arroyomolinos, whose motive and expectations were:

"First of all, we depart from the Subsidiary Standards of Municipal Planning of Arroyomolinos, definitively approved by Agreement of the Governing Council of the Community of Madrid dated 1 June 1995, which in a short time, due to the excellent position of the municipality and the high levels of real estate activity, determined the need for a review of its overall planning to respond to the new needs that arose. "

"In the Review of the NN.SS, a remarkable residential growth of the municipality is contemplated that is specified in 10,200 new dwellings[4], of which this project provides 3,950 homes, being more than half the object of some protection regime, configuring as characteristic use the residential and as complementary uses services, commercial, school dots, free spaces and green areas. In short, one of the essential characteristics of this urban development is the formulation of urban growth with mixed uses, in which together with residential uses converge commercial uses, services, tertiaries and equipment"

This same report concludes with:

"The finalist urban model that tries to translate the NN.SS Review. In which the majority of the vacant soil is covered, it has made a quantitative and qualitative change in the management of the municipality, a radical transformation of the same, where of having a small "almond" of urban soil surrounded by non-urbanable soil, it has gone to an inverse situation, becoming almost the entire municipal term in Suelo Apto para Urbanizar, except the area declared Natural Park of the Guadarrama by Law. This phenomenon has been defined by Javier Ruiz Sánchez[7] as a diffusion of the rural in the urban, until the practical disappearance of that, adding that the traditional limits have been dissolved, so that intense urban expectations have been generated on undeveloped soil, in an increasing spiral of pressure on the new revisions of the Planning. "

"To this we must add that the project Ciudad Jardín Arroyomolionos has chosen to establish low-density models (with a high number of single-family homes), and an effective occupation of 167 Ha, with numerous infrastructures and facilities to serve the residential ones, which necessarily implies an excessive consumption of non-renewable space, without the experience of other similar developments has served to change to other more sustainable projects both environmentally and economically. "

By 2016, most of the initial plan had been completed, but other projects that followed ended up stalled due to the crisis situation, thus leaving a large amount of urbanized land without building.

Monuments and places of interest

Torreón de Arroyomolinos or Torre del Pan

Torreón

The most representative element of the town and the exceptional witness of its historical evolution is the Torreón de Arroyomolinos, rehabilitated at the beginning of the century XXI. According to some sources, it was ordered to be built by Juan de Oviedo. However, the shields that hang from its walls belong to the Catholic Monarchs and Gonzalo Chacón, lord of Casarrubios and chief steward of the infanta Isabel I of Castilla. It is included in the Route through the castles, fortresses and watchtowers of the Community of Madrid, although the interior cannot be visited.

Cordel of Arroyomolinos

It is a road that runs from the Guadarrama River to the municipality of Móstoles going up parallel to the Arroyo de los Combos. In the course of its route we find archaeological remains belonging to mills from medieval times, finding recreation areas such as picnic areas or bike lanes in one of its sections. The Cordel included in the natural park of the Middle Course of the Guadarrama River runs through areas of great ecological and landscape value where we can observe areas of pine forests, holm oaks, scrub, hawthorns, wild roses, blackberries as well as diversity of riverside trees such as poplars, Poplars, Willows, Elms. As for fauna, we will find a great diversity of birds, amphibians, being easy to observe rabbits and partridges, in its closest area to the Guadarrama inhabited by wild boars.

Culture

Statue of Gonzalo Chacón, key character in the history of the village, in a park near the Torreón de Arroyomolinos

The municipality has numerous infrastructures related to sports and culture, including three sports centers and a cultural center that houses most of the cultural activity of the municipality.

• Festivals

Much of this takes place during the celebration of the Corpus Cristhi, which is held around the first week of May, although since it is a religious celebration, its date is mobile. It is in these when the contests of Painting, Poetry, Photography, etc. are held. Sports meetings and various exhibitions are also held.

• Theatre

Numerous dramatic works are represented in the Auditorium. The award-winning Las tres Carabelas Theatrical Association, with a trajectory of about 20 years and created by Gloria Calso Navarro, neighbor of the municipality, continues to represent several times a year without any profit.

• Music

The Municipal School of Music and the Coral of Arroyomolinos are the most representative parts of the music of Arroyomolinos, amen of other groups and formations of the neighbors themselves. Previously, the missing Municipal Band was responsible for putting music into public events and processions, tasks that now carry out the aforementioned schools.

• Painting

It highlights the exhibition of the main pictorial works of the neighbors of Arroyomolinos in the new cultural center.

• Memorandum

In 2017 it became a medieval villa to celebrate the 510th anniversary of the death of Gonzalo Chacón.

Services

Education

Arroyomolinos constitutes a single school area dependent on the South Territorial Area Directorate of the Community of Madrid.^{[citation required]}

In Arroyomolinos there are 7 nurseries (1 public and 6 private), 5 public schools for infant and primary education, 2 secondary education institutes, 1 Vocational Training center (within Colegio Arenales) and 2 subsidized schools (both with some private stages).

In 2016, the citizen platform #Soseducacionarroyomolinos succeeded, after a demonstration in the town, for the Community of Madrid to constitute the legal entity of the 5th Public School for Early Childhood and Primary Education in Arroyomolinos starting the 2016/2017 academic year in different spaces enabled in the town until the construction of the facilities.

The Auditorium building houses an art school and the only municipal library.

Transportation

Roads

• 29 km from Puerta del Sol to the southwest, on the road A-5, past Parque Coímbra to the left, taking the comarcal road M-413 or the most recent bulevar (Ps. 23 and 25). Through this motorway, in the direction of Madrid, it is accessed to the M-50 ring, 10.5 kilometers from Arroyomolinos and the M-40, 19 km from the town.
• Access to the toll motorway R-5 through its incorporation into the first roundabout of the M-413 compost road, towards Moraleja de Enmedio. The access is 1600 meters from Torreón, in the center of the town and next to the entrances to the new urban development to the south, such as La Nueva Rinconada or Zarzalejo.

Bus

StreamMovesYou

In 2017, the ArroyoTeMueve citizen platform was born, whose activity is based on improving public transport in the municipality. The citizen platform contributed to the creation of the urban line L1 of Arroyomolinos, which opened at the end of 2017. In the same way, he pressed for the improvement of the frequency of passage of the 495 and 499 line.

ArroyoTeMueve also promoted one of the first citizen proposals of the Community of Madrid, demanding that Arroyomolinos improve its transport area from B3 to B2, as well as improve the frequencies of all its lines. The citizen proposal was approved by the Participation Commission of the Madrid Assembly with the affirmative votes of Más Madrid, PSOE, Vox and Unidas Podemos and the abstention of the PP.

Currently, ArroyoTeMueve is dedicated to denouncing the saturation that occurs in the intercity buses of Arroyomolinos, as well as demanding that the neighbor-bus ratio be increased until it is equal to that of other nearby towns such as Navalcarnero or Villaviciosa de Odón.