The central government wants builders and private developers to speed up housing construction. The Executive considers it essential to expand the offer, not without neglecting some shock measures in certain tense areas. That is why the president himself, Pedro Sánchez, specified a package of concrete measures in the real estate sector yesterday. Among which, to modify the regulations to speed up the granting of planning licenses and, in turn, facilitate greater funding for the sector. Entrepreneurs are willing to contribute their capabilities to accelerate projects. This is the conclusion of the meeting held yesterday in Moncloa with a monothematic affair: advancing a “country alliance for housing” through “public-private collaboration”, summed up the minister of the branch, Isabel Rodríguez.
Sánchez received a large group of representatives from the real estate sector, banking and trade unions to convey to them that the central government will launch urgent initiatives to try to solve the bottlenecks that developers and builders are currently facing up to date Specifically, the Executive announced the immediate modification of Order ECO/805/2003, of March 27, on rules for the valuation of immovable property and certain rights for certain financial purposes. Just yesterday the Ministry of Economy started the public consultation. These specific changes to the ECO order will allow to “clarify” the situation and clarify the issues that slow down the administrative agility of urban management, Rodríguez explained.
At the same time, the Spanish Government intends to include in the same standard aspects related to the novelties that the sector has been incorporating over the last few years, such as the industrialization of housing construction. Developers such as Aedas Homes or Culmia, among others, are resorting to the industrialized construction technique, which consists of certain elements of a property being made in a factory and then moving them to the building. A kind of chain production of kitchens or bathrooms, among other elements. But the sector is facing financing problems with banking entities, so they have long been urging the ministry to adopt changes that facilitate the granting of loans.
To these initiatives it is necessary to add the modification of the Land law, a project in parliamentary processing also express (this month it is planned that the amendment process in Congress will be closed) which aims to prevent an urban project from being paralyzed by a considered error minor
All these measures were recurrent demands of the real estate sector, which yesterday came away particularly satisfied from the meeting with Sánchez and Rodríguez, and which was also attended by the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, on whom Sareb depends, an active part in the plan to housing activated by the Executive. The president of the Association of Developers and Builders of Spain (APCE), Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado, assessed the meeting as “very positive” and went so far as to affirm that the modification of the ECO regulations “is an unprecedented measure which will speed up building license concessions”. The developer also demanded that the Spanish Government apply reduced VAT to affordable housing, both for purchase and for rent. The construction employers’ association, CNC, for its part, assured yesterday that it supports the initiative of the Spanish Government. For builders, it is necessary to build more than 150,000 homes a year in Spain.
The aim of this “country alliance for housing”, stated Minister Rodríguez, is that “everyone who has something to contribute, contributes it”. He also recalled that his department has expedited the execution of European funds allocated to the sector. At this moment, 5,500 million have been distributed among the different modalities, with 2,500 million in ICO guarantees that the construction sector will be able to access.
The Government’s minority partner, Sumar, proposed very different measures yesterday to address the problem. The second vice-president, Yolanda Díaz, requested the convening of a conference of presidents focused on housing, although the PSOE postpones this conclave until after the electoral spring and rules out that it will be monothematic. The Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, stated, for his part, that “intervening in the housing market is a social emergency: strict regulation of seasonal and tourist rentals; an effective rent index, and prohibit the speculative purchase of vulture funds”. “We will insist on it until it is a right and not a business”, he added.
