The Basque Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Denis Itxaso, has announced that his Executive plans to declare a "stressed area" in terms of housing in the coming months in the three provincial capitals of the Basque Country, San Sebastián, Bilbao and Vitoria.
In addition, the Basque cities of Irún (Guipúzcoa), Galdácano (Vizcaya), Zumaya (Guipúzcoa) and Lasarte-Oria (Guipúzcoa) will be declared stressed areas, according to the news portal of idealista.com.
Itxaso explained this in statements to journalists after participating in the Sectoral Housing Conference held at the Ministry of Housing, announcing that steps are being taken to declare these areas as stressed in terms of housing, after Rentería (Guipúzcoa) has already done so.
Specifically, the Socialist Minister has detailed that his Government is waiting for San Sebastián and Irún, the two largest cities in Guipúzcoa, to agree throughout October to request the declaration of a stressed area.
From there, the Basque Government will have three months to study these three-year plans, as it is asking that anyone who wants to declare a stressed area establish this three-year plan to "give it scope, depth and opportunity to build more supply": "It is not just about adhering to the limitations of the increase in the price of rent."
"This is a problem of supply and more housing needs to be built and that is where we want to ask the city councils, from their powers, especially if they have voluntarily wanted to declare themselves stressed, for a commitment and that commitment involves the free transfer of plots, a discount and a bonus on the ICO construction tax from 95% to the Basque Government so that it can build more housing and a myriad of measures that all of them put together can contribute to us starting to see the light in the medium term," he said.
