The candidate of Drago Verdes Canarias to the Canarian Parliament for Lanzarote, Rafa Jiménez, has announced that if he obtains representation, he will "promote a new Housing Law in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, where access to housing is a fundamental right and limits its use as a market good."
“In recent years, the price of rent in Lanzarote has skyrocketed, increasing by up to 50%, and in the Archipelago there are 20,000 people requesting a decent roof over their heads, according to data from the autonomous institution itself. While this is happening, the Government of the Canary Islands has gone through all colors and types, from the right to the supposed left, and none have started working on this matter since 2003, leaving the situation to inertia until it becomes unsustainable. It is a shame that the Canary Housing Law is 20 years old,” criticizes Jiménez.
“The particularities of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands require their own legal framework,” the candidate for the Canarian Parliament stated in a press release. The environmentalist space affirms that the Canary Islands have "peculiarities related to their archipelagic geography, with the amount of protected land, etcetera, and that make them demand their own legal framework to fight against the price of rent, and the acquisition of housing."
“In addition to a cap on the price of rent, it is essential to monitor and limit the uncontrolled activity of vacation homes. It is necessary to establish a maximum limit in order to control the proliferation of this activity, since its existence is closely related to the rise in prices,” considers the candidate.
“It also coincides that a high percentage of home purchases in recent times has been by foreign capital with greater purchasing power, which significantly increases the price of said purchase.”
“All of this together makes both home ownership and rent inaccessible to the majority of the people of Lanzarote,” says Jiménez. In this sense, the candidate of Drago Verdes Canarias has pointed out that "the PSOE is laughing at the people: more than two decades without housing and they are still boasting."
From the coalition, led by Alberto Rodríguez, they accuse the Socialist Party and its government partners of "dereliction of duties in housing matters, favoring large property owners and vulture funds." In that line, they also criticize the Pacto de las Flores for not having control over more than half of the existing public housing, and for not having done anything to reverse it.
“The PSOE's announcement is electoralist and a mockery of the people. What the PSOE, Dolores Corujo and Franquis are doing is the most blatant electoralism and is directly taking the people of Lanzarote for fools. People do not forget that the PSOE is the party that has been in the Government of the Canary Islands for the longest time in recent years, and that its investment in housing on the island has been zero. This critical situation in the issue of rent and purchase is not reached by magic, they are responsible,” concludes Jiménez.
