A Canary Island opens the way to implement housing on agricultural holdings

The Cabildo of El Hierro has approved this Thursday, with the votes in favor of Agrupación Herreña Independiente (AHI) and Asamblea Herreña and against the Government Group (PSOE - PP - IU-Reunir Canarias), a proposal from Asamblea Herreña to promote a formula that allows the establishment of single-family homes linked to real and effective agricultural and livestock exploitations on the island.

The initiative aims to facilitate access to housing in El Hierro and proposes to develop a territorial instrument that allows facilitating access to housing for farmers and ranchers, guaranteeing generational succession, and retaining population in rural areas.

As pointed out during the Plenary by the spokesperson for Asamblea Herreña, David Cabrera, “we cannot continue talking about protecting the territory while forcing those who care for it every day to leave because they have nowhere to live. Without farmers and ranchers, there is no landscape, no food sovereignty, and no future for our towns”.

Cabrera recalled that El Hierro is going through one of the biggest housing access crises in its history, a situation that particularly affects young people who wish to enter agriculture and livestock farming and who face enormous difficulties in developing a life project on the island.

“The greatest risk to our territory is not that people live in the countryside; the real danger is that the countryside becomes depopulated,” he said.

The motion urges the Cabildo to carry out the necessary technical, legal, territorial, and environmental studies to analyze the viability of an instrument that allows authorizing single-family homes inseparably linked to agricultural and livestock exploitations, establishing strict guarantees to prevent any speculative or tourist use.

Among the principles that the future regulation must include are the permanent link between housing and the exploitation, the obligation to prove a real and continuous agricultural or livestock activity, the prohibition of allocating housing for vacation or tourist use, the impossibility of segregating them from the exploitation, and the requirement of full landscape and architectural integration.

The initiative also incorporates a decided commitment to traditional Herreño architecture through the development of a Rural Architecture Guide that promotes buildings inspired by the island's constructive identity, using traditional materials such as stone and architectural solutions that are respectful of the environment.

The agreement also foresees the creation of an Insular Working Group in which public administrations, the agricultural sector, professional associations, and economic and social agents will participate to develop a consensual proposal that allows reconciling the conservation of the territory with the housing needs of the primary sector.