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The Generalitat promotes this year 2023 the incorporation of 10,000 new homes to the social rental stock. This figure will represent a growth of 18% compared to the current park, estimated at 55,000.
The affordable rental flat developments will be located in the most densely populated areas or those with the greatest difficulty in accessing housing. The will of the Government is to advance until reaching levels of social rent equivalent to the European average. For the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès i Garcia, “access to housing is not a luxury, it is a basic right” and essential for a cohesive society. “With the boost of these 10,000 new apartments, we are taking an important leap forward,” adds Aragonès, while stressing “the paradigm shift” that the Government is carrying out in public housing policies.
Of these 10,000 new social rental apartments, more than a third, specifically 3,655, will be owned by the Generalitat. And they will be obtained through two ways. On the one hand, the direct promotion that Incasòl does. And on the other, the direct purchase of homes already built; either through the exercise of the right of first refusal and withdrawal; or through the acquisition of completed and empty or occupied developments, mostly in the hands of financial entities.
Apart from the public park, the Government also wants to give a strong boost to the promotion of social rental housing by third parties and thus collaborate with social agents, cooperatives and developers. One of the main innovations in this area is the transfer of public land, owned by Incasòl, for the construction of more than 1,000 homes. “With the delegated promotion we guarantee that the ownership of the land continues to be public as long as the homes are also always for social rent. Our housing policies pursue permanence and that the social rental park is forever”, highlights the Minister of Territory, Juli Fernàndez i Olivares.
Aid is also planned for private development to promote more than 5,100 flats, which will be financed with the more traditional lines of the Institut Català de Finances and with European funds. Apart from this, this year the transfer of homes from the private market to the Generalitat is also foreseen, for a determined period of time. In this case, they are homes ceded by financial institutions or private owners through the different programs managed by the Agència d’Habitatge de Catalunya. With this line of action, it is expected to obtain another 1,100 homes.
Minister Juli Fernàndez i Olivares points out that it is about using “all the tools we have and new tools, such as the direct purchase or transfer of public land for housing”.
The Government has currently identified 82 municipalities where social rental housing will be built, either directly by the Generalitat or with some type of public aid for the promotion of social rental housing or through the transfer of public land. A figure that will increase as agreements are closed with more town halls and where the purchase of already built homes will be made or acquired by trial and error.
To promote these 10,000 new social rental homes, the Generalitat will invest at least 350 million euros directly and another 180 million in aid. “We know that we have a lot of work to do and that we are far away,” acknowledges President Pere Aragonès, but “we are moving in the right direction, reaching the entire country, with public rental housing initiatives that will respond to a minimum of 82 municipalities and that they will help ensure that no one is left behind”.
