Tackling the housing crisis

The Canarian Government has approved a new housing bill that seeks to “respond to the principal problem” of housing on the islands during an acute housing crisis.

Pablo Rodríguez, Minister for Public Works, Housing and Mobility presented the decree in late February, and said that the bill seeks to increase supply of housing in the face of “enormous” demand.

The regulations involve two packages of measures. Firstly, there is a commitment to increase the availability of land and the use of buildings for housing, and secondly, to promote the building of more public housing. Hardly any social housing has been built on the islands for almost 30 years, leaving several thousand families on waiting lists.

The result is that less than 1% of housing on the Canaries is public and protected, compared to 2.5% in Spain as a whole and 9.3% in Europe. House prices are making it increasingly difficult to get on the housing ladder, rents have rocketed, and low wages and inflation have also squeezed the budgets of families.

The proposed law will permit the use of public land for the construction of social housing, as well as allow certain tourist plots to be reclassified as residential.

This proposal has already been strongly criticised by the César Manrique Foundation, who fear the construction of housing in areas of natural beauty that are currently protected.

The law will also allow existing buildings, for example those for commercial use, to be reclassified and renovated for residential purposes. Unfinished developments will also be completed or renovated, and the process will be made faster and easier.

This will involve invoking a law of urgent measures, which will allow constructors to move ahead without having to fulfil usual planning measures.

The financial threshold required for families to access public housing will also be raised, “allowing the middle classes to benefit from the measures.”

The future law will not “ban or remove holiday rentals” according to statements by Tourist Minister Jessica de León at the Berlin Travel Fair. De León said that a register of holiday lets would be created and that the Ayuntamientos would have three years to provide such a register.