The Government of the Canary Islands already speaks of "housing emergency" to refer to the lack of housing suffered by the Archipelago. This has been reflected in the Decree Law approved this Monday in the Governing Council and that comes into force this Tuesday, after its publication in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands.
This new measure, approved by the Executive formed by the Canarian Coalition, the Popular Party, the Gomera Socialist Group and the Independent Herreña Association (AHI) leaves without effect any planning that is non-compliant and does not require "carrying out modification or adaptation processes".
The problem of access to housing in the Islands and, specifically in Lanzarote, has several edges. The constant increase in demand faces a lack of sufficient supply. Added to this is the shortage of public housing created in the last 30 years, the real estate crisis and the rise of vacation rentals. Therefore, the Decree Law defends the "urgent need" to offer "an exceptional and urgent response".
Faced with this, the Government of the Canary Islands states that all possibilities must be taken into account, starting with legal transformations of the land to build, to the "viability of using existing constructions as homes, including unfinished ones", as well as streamlining the procedures for protected housing.
Among some of the measures, the Canarian Executive, led by the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party, plans to offer "tax incentives" for new construction or rehabilitation construction companies and legal and material guarantees for tenants of free housing. At the same time, it calls for putting into practice to know if these measures will be viable or not.
Proposed measures
The new Housing Decree Law includes several proposals to solve the housing deficit in the Canary Islands. Among them, it proposes that measures be created to increase the availability of land, as well as others to promote, encourage and facilitate the construction of protected housing.
In this sense, public promotion protected housing is declared as "of general interest". This means that, once their projects are approved, their content prevails over existing planning and the relevant environmental impact assessments are excluded.
This project opens the way to build protected housing on public land even though they are not contemplated in the planning. Therefore, spaces that were planned as municipal facilities, such as squares, pavilions or parks, could end up being blocks of flats.
Among the proposals also highlights the compatibility of residential and tourist uses on undeveloped land or the change of use of plots to residential, without specifying to what type of plots it refers. In addition, the regional Executive proposes the recovery of residential developable land provided for in unadapted planning instruments.
In this sense, it contemplates the extension of residential housing in tourist areas so that groups that cannot access public housing have the opportunity to obtain private housing.
Thus, the Government of the Canary Islands proposes to recover common rustic land as developable that changed with the Law of Land and Protected Natural Spaces of the Canary Islands and that was originally residential or tourist-residential. Generally speaking, the residential part may be recovered if it is used for the construction of housing and if half of them are protected.
Reclassification of commercial premises
The Decree Law, signed by Fernando Clavijo and the Minister of Housing, Pablo Rodríguez, also contemplates the reclassification of existing buildings to be used for housing, that is, to use commercial premises, offices or buildings for tertiary use to convert them into homes.
In this sense, they must be buildings that already exist, and in their change, residential use must predominate over urban land. In addition, to reclassify buildings, they must be closed for more than a year, to become totally residential, with 50% of protected housing and only allocating the lower part of the building to commercial use.
Among some of the novelties, it contemplates changing the use of premises and entire buildings or increasing the buildability of already built buildings by raising their height until reaching that of the adjoining ones.
Thus, the initiative seeks to divide existing homes to create new homes or rehabilitate unfinished urbanizations and buildings to recover those "negative elements of the landscape" while increasing the housing supply.
In this line, in order to rehabilitate these unfinished buildings, the Decree Law states that a series of requirements must be met: the executed works must be adapted to a building permit, the building must have a partial structure already executed and its execution has been prolonged beyond the legal term and the license has already expired and the current planning contemplates its urban destination.
Thus, the Executive offers a period of one year to process these licenses and highlights that half of the homes that are built in this rehabilitation must also be used for the protected use of private promotion. So if this license is not requested in the current year, the administration "may agree to the subsidiary execution" and dedicate the entire promotion to build public protected housing, as well as expropriate the land.
Both in the rehabilitation of urbanizations and unfinished buildings, the realization of protected housing must be guaranteed, otherwise the rehabilitation license cannot be granted.
In addition, to increase the public housing heritage, the regional Executive seeks to recognize the right of preferential acquisition of the administration to transfer buildings where there are rental homes.
The Executive plans the transfer of municipal land in favor of the Canarian Housing Institute (ICAVI). That is, the land classified in the municipalities as general or local systems may develop protected public promotion housing.
Prioritize construction over planning
The new Decree Law approved by the Government of the Canary Islands leaves without effect any planning that is non-compliant, "without the need to carry out modification or adaptation processes" to avoid delaying its effects.
The initiative of the Canarian Government also recognizes that the construction of public promotion housing can be classified as of general interest so that its realization prevails over urban planning.
At this point, the Government of the Canary Islands advocates that the environmental impact assessment is not applied in exceptional cases and that some projects are declared urgent to "reduce the deadlines" in compliance with administrative procedures. In addition, when expropriating, it supports that construction projects are declared as "of public utility and social interest".
The Executive foresees that construction companies can carry out the project and the work for "greater administrative agility", as well as that private initiative is recognized on public land to build public housing.
In this line, the government led by Fernando Clavijo grants a period of three months for the processing and resolution of the provisional qualification when applying for a license for construction. If it is not answered within that period, the application is understood to be admitted, which is known as positive silence.
The Cabildos can promote construction
The island Cabildos can, from the modification of the Housing Law of the Canary Islands, promote the construction of protected housing, which will always become public. In addition, the Cabildo must intervene when dealing with buildings with "expressly protected values".
While the construction projects planned in the Decree Law "will be exempt from any act of municipal control". If a town hall disagrees, the project will be elevated to the Government of the Canary Islands to determine whether or not its approval and subsequent execution proceeds.
Sale prices
"For protected private promotion housing, the maximum reference price per square meter of useful surface will be used to determine the maximum sale price and the maximum rental income".
To conclude, the maximum sale price of a single-family home between party walls in Lanzarote must be 2,242.3 euros per square meter, while in a collective housing building it will decrease to 2,133.89 euros.
Meanwhile, for the lease, the duration and type of lease and the maximum reference percentage in the contract time must be taken into account. For private promotion homes that are rented for more than 10 years it will be 3%. Thus, the maximum term for the temporary transfer of protected housing will be 30 years.
