The European Commission invited the Canary Islands Association of Holiday Rentals (ASCAV) to the last high-level interinstitutional meeting between the Commission and the European Parliament held last Tuesday, May 5, to discuss the housing crisis that the European continent is suffering.
ASCAV had the opportunity to present its vision and proposals to alleviate the shortage of residential rental housing to the president of the European Parliament's Housing Committee, Irene Tinagli, the European Union's Commissioner for Energy and Housing, Dan Jørgensen, and the head of the Housing Task Force, Matthew Baldwin.
The Canary association focused its two interventions in the meeting to explain the “danger that the large cities are running by allowing the massive purchase of entire buildings by large investment funds, either to convert them into pseudo-hotels, colivings or short-term rentals, massively expelling residents and turning the centers into theme parks”.
ASCAV defended, once again, that “the municipal regulations, in many cases, have not only allowed and encouraged (the aforementioned), but have displaced the few families that rented vacationally and that generated local economy”.
In the meeting participated multiple associations of student and youth collectives concerned about the lack of affordable housing and they demanded stricter regulations that would guarantee them access to affordable housing to study, become independent, or start their future project.
ASCAV said it empathized with young people but warned that, “in the case of Spain, it has been precisely the overregulation that has caused a contrary effect”.
According to several studies cited by ASCAV, "the excess of regulation has generated a 40% contraction of residential rental housing, causing the unprotectedness and lack of legal certainty for owners, in turn generating an unsustainable escalation of rental prices, both for them and for any working-class family".
ASCAV celebrated that the community institutions require its vision on such a sensitive matter as housing while it “laments that in the Canary Islands it is ignored”.
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