Canary Islands Prepares Imminent Decree to "Multiply" Housing Supply

Aims to expedite land transfer, increase payments to developers, and facilitate the completion of unfinished houses

February 6 2024 (10:22 WET)
Governing Council of the Canary Islands Executive
Governing Council of the Canary Islands Executive

The Government of the Canary Islands plans to approve this month a decree of urgent measures regarding housing, with which it intends to "multiply" the "insufficient" supply of public housing foreseen in the current Canary Islands housing plan and also have them available more quickly.

The Minister of Public Works, Housing, and Mobility of the Government of the Canary Islands, Pablo Rodríguez, explained after the meeting of the Governing Council that the decree seeks to act in three ways: speed up the transfer of land for protected housing, update the basic module received by private developers, and use the homes that have remained unfinished since the 2008 crisis.

Rodríguez explained that the Government has taken this decision in light of the serious problem in the Canary Islands of access to housing and explained that a key aspect of the decree is to speed up the procedures for the construction of protected housing.

In this regard, he highlighted that the procedures will be expedited so that the town councils make land available to the Government for the construction of protected housing, so that twelve months do not have to pass from the time the transfer of land is approved in the municipal plenary session until the executive can dispose of it.

In addition, an attempt will be made to release the approximately 1,400 unfinished homes since the real estate and banking crisis of 2008, most of them in the hands of Sareb and private funds.

"There are hundreds of unfinished homes that clearly disfigure our environment, but that can also be a much faster response to the demand for housing," since many are already included in the planning and could be completed with a simple license update.

 

Profitable for the private sector

Another tool that the Government proposes to speed up the construction of housing is to update the basic module per square meter that is paid to the private sector, which will also be higher in the non-capital islands.

Rodríguez did not specify the figures but pointed out that the module has not been updated since 2003, when it was approximately 1,400 euros per square meter, while in 2023 it is estimated at 1,800 euros, which will make it profitable for the private sector to build officially protected housing.

"What is sought is to speed up the construction of public housing, use all unfinished homes, and facilitate the participation of the private sector," the councilor summarized.

For Rodríguez, these are "ambitious proposals, unprecedented in many cases," that will expand the supply, since the forecast of 2,000 homes in the current Canary Islands housing plan is "absolutely insufficient," since there are 25,000 applicants in the Government's registry alone.

With this decree, what we are looking for is to "considerably multiply the results," said the councilor.

The Government calculates that the results of the measures that are directly applicable and do not require agreements from other institutions or regulatory development will begin to be seen in the first twelve months from the approval of the decree.

The Government spokesperson, Alfonso Cabello, added that together with this decree, the housing problem will also be addressed through the regulation of vacation homes that the Department of Tourism is developing.

 

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