The Councilor for Urban Planning of Arrecife, on the overcrowding of people in shared apartments: "Something is wrong"

The councilor for Urban Planning of the Arrecife City Council, Maciot Cabrera (CC), intervened this week on the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote of Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero to address criticism for the increase in shared housing where rooms are sublet irregularly. Among them, a case revealed by La Voz where the illegal rental of rooms in a dwelling where at least ten workers live on Calle Real in the capital of Lanzarote is denounced.

"We are experiencing a situation that should not occur in an advanced society as ours supposedly is," Cabrera began, responding to complaints received by the Arrecife City Council about urban planning offenses amid a housing crisis. Lanzarote continues to register historic highs in the price of housing for sale and rent, which pushes workers to seek other housing alternatives.

"That people have to share housing in overcrowded conditions to have a place to sleep, I think it is a clear demonstration that something is failing," insisted the head of Urban Planning, who attributed this situation to the "serious structural problem with housing in Lanzarote" and "in Arrecife."

However, the official assured that despite the fact that there are several complaints filed with the Technical Office, one of them revealed by La Voz a week ago and the other reported on Radio Lanzarote a few days ago on Calle Manolo Millares, he does not have "direct competence to regulate this or to control or manage these types of situations."

Thus, he defended that "there is no regulation that limits the number of rooms a dwelling can have," while indicating that where they can intervene and act is "in those cases or situations where regulations are being violated" and "works are being carried out or structural modifications or structural issues of the dwelling are being made without a license."

"The administration has no tools to control whether rooms are being rented, because it is actually legal to rent rooms," Cabrera said, adding that "another different thing would be if some type of economic activity were being carried out." For example, using these homes as daily room rentals. In this case, it would not be a matter for the Urban Planning department, but for Classified Activities, but that "it could be incurring in some illegality."

Regarding the processing of urban planning infraction files, the Arrecife Urban Planning councilor has acknowledged that "we are not as agile as we would like," confessing that the council is not "as up to date with urban planning infraction files." Thus, he pointed out that "they are being processed, all of them are being opened, that is, they are not being allowed to expire or pass by, but we are not as agile as we should be."

In the case published in this media on Real Street, Cabrera has stated that he is sure that "the police will go and there we will check what type of activity is being carried out, if it is really a home that is being rented by rooms legally and correctly, or if some type of economic activity is indeed being carried out such as a coliving or as daily room rentals or a vacation rental or whatever it may be."