The area is made up of 32 blocks (Basque: 'bloke',[2] Spanish: 'bloques'[2]) that hold six apartments each, as well as a number of buildings that were built as part of the original development, such as a school, church and shops, which have now been renovated by the Errekaleor Bizirik community.

The neighbourhood has existed since the 1950s, but fell into disrepair and was largely abandoned after the Vitoria-Gasteiz city government evicted the original residents in order to develop the area with modern apartment complexes.

Due to the European debt crisis, these plans were never carried out, and the area was almost entirely unused for years before the occupation began.

In the 1950s, the neighbourhood was built in order to provide housing for the workers who were relocated in the city, having been moved from Andalucia, Castile and León and Extremadura due to an industrialization program in Francoist Spain.

During a city-wide labour strike, Romualdo Barroso Chaparro, a 19 year old resident of Errekaleor, was one of five people killed in a police massacre in 1976, giving the neighbourhood a distinctly militant reputation.

The new plan was for 1,511 new apartments in 4 buildings surrounding a park of 1.7 acres, designed by Ramón López de Ludo, VC Architects, and Antonio Vélez.

However, by early 2010 there only remained 35 families who had refused to leave and the public development company Ensanche 21 began the final eviction processes.

[11][12] The occupation was a result of the original group's reflection on the problem of affordable housing for young people in Vitoria-Gasteiz and a way of taking direct action against the real estate speculation in the region.

[4] Errekaleor Bizirik is made up of a variety of projects and services offered by its members such as a bakery, orchards, a chicken coop, a library, nursery, print shop, an Evangelical Church which has been converted into a recording studio, classrooms for teaching the Basque language and other subjects, a fronton (a traditional Basque sports court for playing pelota), a cinema of 115 seats, a free shop, an organic farm of 2 hectares, playgrounds for children, a bar and a 'gaztetxe' social centre.

In development are projects such as restoration of the riverfront, self-production of gourmet mushrooms, a radio station, a herb garden and an independent energy grid made up of solar panels, turbines and bicycle generators.

[16] As the neighbourhood changed from an abandoned area to a new alternative cultural project, the city and the legal owners of the property, Ensanche 21, decided to start working to reclaim control of the terrain.

"[18] The occupiers responded with legal statements from electricians, architects, and other professionals that affirmed the safety of the neighbourhood, but the city refused to reconnect the electricity.

[19] The mayor of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Gorka Urtaran of the PNV, met representatives of Errekaleor Bizirik in November 2015 with an offer to move all the current residents to a neighbourhood in Aretxabaleta.

[24] Due to the ongoing electrical contracts inside the neighbourhood and by houses connected to this cable, legal charges were then pressed against Ensanche 21 and Iberdrola.