The Governing Council has today approved, at the proposal of the Minister of Public Works, Housing and Mobility, Pablo Rodríguez, the Draft Decree regulating the registration and operation of the Public Registry of Applicants for Protected Housing in the Canary Islands, as well as the allocation regime for protected and publicly promoted housing and its non-linked annexes.
The regulation introduces a change in the allocation system for publicly promoted protected housing. Compared to the previous model, based mainly on lottery when demand exceeded supply, the new decree regulates an allocation procedure based on objective scoring criteria.
This system allows prioritizing access to housing based on the social, economic, and family situation of the applicants, with special attention to households facing greater difficulties in accessing decent housing.
The decree expressly reinforces the requirements of roots and residency in the Canary Islands as a key element for access to public housing. To be awarded a publicly promoted protected housing unit, it will be necessary to prove uninterrupted residency in the Archipelago for at least ten years, or fifteen years if such residency has been interrupted.
Likewise, residency or prolonged employment in the municipality where the development is located is required, ensuring that the public housing stock primarily serves the population with effective ties to the territory.
The new text also regulates in detail the registration requirements in the Registry, clearly establishing the income and asset levels required to access protected housing.
Priority for young people, the elderly, and victims of gender-based violence
The draft decree also introduces a clear social boost to public housing policy by revising upwards the reservation percentages for specific groups. Specifically, the reservation for young people increases from 5% to 20%, that for people over 65 years of age goes from 5% to 10%, as does that for people with functional limitations, while the quota reserved for victims of gender-based violence rises from 5% to 8%.
Likewise, the decree incorporates for the first time the general regime of obligations that must be assumed by the recipients of publicly promoted housing, in order to ensure responsible, adequate, and sustainable management of public assets, reinforcing the use of housing as a habitual and permanent residence and preserving its long-term social function.
In addition, the regulation orders for the first time the system for awarding parking spaces and other annexes not linked to housing, which until now lacked a specific procedure, providing the Canary Islands Housing Institute with a clear legal instrument for their management in accordance with the general interest.
The standard also advances in the modernization of housing typologies, by expressly defining what is understood by prefabricated housing and modular housing and regulating their use by the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands.
With this draft decree, the Government of the Canary Islands takes a decisive step in modernizing its regulatory framework for housing, reinforcing the transparency, equity, and social character of access to protected housing, and ensuring that public resources are primarily allocated to those who need them most.
