The Tourism Department of the Government of the Canary Islands published this Wednesday morning the draft of the Vacation Housing Law, which will be in the public comment phase until next May.
In addition to classifying campaign tents, cars, wooden cabins, or containers as "substandard housing" or increasing restrictions in neighborhood communities, the regional Executive has limited the land where vacation homes can be established and has tightened the conditions for authorizing new tourist homes.
Land Requirements for Installing Vacation Housing
The Government of the Canary Islands has emphasized that land linked to residential use is enabled "only" for each home to be used as a habitual residence, unless the planning "expressly" allows other uses or compatibilities, which would include vacation use.
Among other points, it has indicated that planning instruments must reserve 90% of residential buildings for "exclusive" use as housing, excluding their use as tourist rentals. Thus, vacation use will be 10% of the inhabitants of each population center.
Therefore, the new Vacation Housing Law has emphasized that "urban planning instruments" may not enable the use of tourist accommodations on agricultural settlements, nor on rustic land with natural, landscape, forestry, hydrological protection, or flood-prone coastal areas, nor on protected natural spaces or those integrated into the Natura 2000 Network, nor on land classified for residential use.
In this sense, tourist use may not be enabled in residential spaces where residential and tourist use are not permitted indistinctly. Nor can premises located on the ground floors of buildings be converted into vacation homes.
At the same time, the regional Executive has increased the requirements to obtain a vacation home license. To accept its operation, the planning instrument must "certify" that there is sufficient land in the municipality intended for habitual residence, evaluating the number of secondary and primary homes.
Thus, its installation cannot be in an area declared as a stressed residential market zone nor can its declaration be "possible and pertinent."
It must also be proven that the protection of the urban or rural environment, the environment, or heritage is not put at risk.
Meanwhile, in rural settlements with a density of fewer than ten homes per hectare, only one tourist home and six accommodation places will be allowed. In addition, areas with a density greater than ten homes per hectare may not exceed three homes or 18 accommodation places. While in delimited areas, they may not exceed 10% of the total area.
Requirements of the State of the Housing
To enable residential land or homes that already exist as tourist accommodation, they must have a minimum age of ten years, which must be accredited. In addition, the urban and tourist qualification of new homes will be automatically suspended when the area is declared as a stressed residential area.
Added to this is that to convert a residential home into a tourist home, it must have at least 39 square meters of usable area for one person, 44 for two people, and eight meters more as a minimum for each additional occupant. Thus, if the number of places is greater than four, it must have two bathrooms, and if it is greater than eight, three.
If the planning does not express it, the Canarian Executive has set out some requirements to be met regarding the state of vacation properties. Among them, they cannot exceed eight places, in no case will they exceed the places included in the architectural project or in the certificate of occupancy, and there must be one person per single bedroom and two per double bedroom. Thus, other rooms in the house cannot be used to calculate the capacity of the accommodation.
Added to this are the requirements of the neighborhood communities, where the installation of a vacation home is not allowed without their approval in the statutes or in an agreement at the owners' meeting. Added to this are a series of conditions that this type of accommodation must meet if they want to be located in a block of buildings.
In addition, they must comply with the criteria of safety, health, habitability, accessibility, and the technical and urban conditions. As well as completing the responsible declaration of the tourist use of accommodation in homes before the Island Council, which must then transfer the registration ex officio to the General Tourist Registry of the Canary Islands.
The responsible declaration enables the exercise of activity for a period of five years, after this time the activity can be continued if "all" the requirements are still met, including that the area is not declared as a stressed residential market area. Thus, a new responsible declaration must be issued to the Cabildo.
In addition, if the tourist administration verifies the lack of effective provision of the service for more than 365 days, the registration of the home in the General Tourist Registry will be canceled.
Energy Requirements
It must also have heating and cooling devices with an efficiency equivalent to A, except for technical, environmental, or economic viability reasons. In addition, it must have an energy classification C in buildings prior to December 2007 and class B after this date.
The tourist accommodation must have a domestic hot water (DHW) generation system by solar panels or other alternative renewable installations that reaches 70% in homes prior to December 2007 and 90% in homes after.
They must also have "an approved power outlet" to recharge emission-free vehicles or justify its existence at a public access charging point within a radius of 500 meters, unless it is unfeasible for technical, environmental, or economic reasons. As well as direct road access to the house and by paved road, when possible.
