The construction of new homes has fallen by 69% in the city of Barcelona in the first half of the year, according to data from the projects approved by the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC): only 240 homes have been approved during the period.
According to the president of the Barcelona branch of the school, Sandra Bestraten, the low building activity in the city is due to “legal uncertainty” and especially to the regulations that oblige developers to allocate 30% of the homes in the new promotions to social housing. Thus, according to data from the school, so far this year only three promotions have been approved that meet this requirement: very small, with a total of 54 homes, of which 16 are protection.
This regulation also affects large renovations, which have also slowed down, so that the surface area of ??homes, both new and renovated, has fallen by 54% in the city and stands at 63,766 m². the new mayor of Barcelona, ??Jaume Collboni, has announced his intention to review this regulation.
Sònia Oliveras, general director of the COAC, highlighted that the Catalan Housing Sector Plan set itself the objective of promoting 25,000 new homes a year to meet the housing needs of the population, a figure “that has never been met”, she lamented.
In Catalonia as a whole, in the first half of the year 7,433 homes have been reached, concentrated in Girona and the towns around Barcelona: Vilanova y la Geltrú (372), Sabadell (359), Esplugues de Llobregat (306), Abrera (189), El Prat de Llobregat (165), L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (163), Badalona (159), Terrassa (146), Montgat (138), Cubelles (131) and Viladecans (111).
“Real estate investment moves outside the capital, towards well-connected locations, and towards the promotion of buildings with uses other than housing,” Oliveras lamented.
Bestraten recognized that the hope of architects is that after the stoppage of the electoral cycle the building activity will be reactivated; June, with 603,783 m² approved, has been the month with the most activity since the school has records.
In his opinion, in addition, the administrations would have to take measures to encourage the promotion of housing. The president of the Barcelona architects proposed that the administration open up to collaboration with the private sector to streamline processes, and reduce bureaucracy and the time needed to obtain licenses. Likewise, Bestraten asked that urban policies be adapted to meet the strategic objectives for which they are designed (in an allusion to the side effects of the controversial 30%) and that there be legal stability. “These are factors that make the investment move to other areas where there are no these drawbacks,” she acknowledged.
To solve the problem of high housing costs, Bestraten demanded that the administrations begin to build social housing on the plots that are inactive. “There is a lot of public land that could go on the market with private collaboration to build affordable housing. It is a challenge that is on the table and that public administrations have to face”.
