Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has finally been given building permission after 137 years.
In 2016, authorities in Spain realised that building permission for the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona had not been granted. The church is visited by more than 4 million people each year and is a landmark on the Barcelona skyline.
It was designed by the Spanish architect Anton Gaudi and was only a quarter finished when he died in 1926. Construction began in 1882.
In 2016, Spanish authorities realised that planning permission had never been granted meaning that the basilica which is still under construction today had been operating illegally for more than a century.
In 2018 it an agreement as reached between the Barcelona city authorities and operators of the Sagrada Familia that € 32 million would be paid to the city over the next ten years. The funds would be used to improve transportation and infrastructure in the neighborhoods surrounding the basilica.
On Friday, the operators confirmed through the Sagrada Familia website that planning permission had finally been granted and that construction could legally continue. The license for Anton Gaudi’s project has cost € 4.6 million.
