One morning they peed on one of the landings, another day they left the remains of a broken vodka bottle in the elevator, once they damaged the plants in the portal, and on another occasion they attacked the motorbikes parked outside of the building…
Residents of a block of Carrer Bruc, in Dreta de l’Eixample in Barcelona, ??report that they are fed up with the excesses of many guests of the two licensed tourist apartments in operation. “Some do kindness and others don’t. And you don’t know when you’ll be able to sleep, and this uncertainty makes you cringe, it keeps you tense.” “And the early morning tickets, the constant chatter down the stairs of suitcases and strangers”. “Do you know that homes in estates with tourist flats are devalued by 20%? I’m considering selling my flat, but…”. “You call the police and notify the manager… And sometimes a worker comes and tells them that if they don’t behave they won’t return the deposit. And to many it doesn’t matter, they come to have fun”. “And blocks of flats are for living in. These accommodations have no place here, let alone those that break coexistence.” “We joined the neighborhood association and started handing out leaflets through mailboxes, to unite.” “And the other day a neighbor went to the Mossos to complain, and the officer told him he had to make a lot of noise and gave him our flyer!”
Jaume Artigues, from the Dreta de l’Eixample neighborhood association, estimates that 30% of the buildings in the neighborhood have apartments dedicated to holiday rentals. “In the seventies the neighborhood had about 73,000 residents, and today, about 43,000 residents and about 29,000 tourist beds. This replacement process is transforming the neighborhood. Market stalls close and find no relief, and brunches and other tourism-oriented businesses open in the streets. The truth is that we are in the neighborhood with the most legal tourist flats in Barcelona: more than 1,700 of the approximately 10,700 in the city. “The City Council, when applying the decree of the Generalitat to regulate this sector, must reduce the number in a substantial way, focusing on housing blocks and especially on those coexistence problems At the association we continue to gather complaints, and we send them to the Consistory”.
The deputy mayor for Tourism and also the councilor responsible for the Eixample, the socialist Jordi Valls, already met with residents of the block of Bruc to explain to them, among other things, that the Urban Guard has already filed three fines 460 euros each in the tourist flats there in operation. And the deputy mayor also met with representatives of other annoying scales: a couple of buildings on Carrer Consell Cent and two more on Carrer Aragó and Bailèn. “Tourist flats alter the housing market – says the deputy mayor -. The rate of construction in Barcelona is between 1,500 and 2,000 flats per year, meaning that the 10,700 licensed tourist flats in the city represent the vegetative growth of the last five years. The decree of the Generalitat empowers us to reduce them in order to lower the price of housing. But we have to find a way to include disruptions to coexistence among the reasons for revoking a license, because the function of residential buildings is for people to have a place to live in peace.”
The City Council tries to combine the factors to be considered. “Neighborly complaints can be one, but not the definitive one. We must work with proven facts. The platforms remove the ads from the illegal offer when we ask them to, and now we want to ask them to also remove those from the flats that disrupt coexistence, even if they are legal. It is a matter of will, of his will. Perhaps it is time for the platforms to change the message they transmit about the experience of traveling to Barcelona”.
A few days ago the Catalan Federation of Tourist Apartments organized a debate to combat a few unfair myths, in their opinion. There they stated that complaints about the inconvenience caused by these accommodations are few, and that the impact of these businesses on the price of housing has nothing to do with what so many people say. The sector alleges that many tend to filter their guests, who opt for a family clientele, and who also install sound meters in apartments to be aware of any debauchery. In addition, the number of legal tourist flats is usually close to 7,500 in active use, a ridiculous number compared to the number of very sporadically used and empty homes, which is close to 75,000. The sector also questions the legal viability of the Generalitat’s decree, and predicts that the revocation of licenses will trigger an avalanche of administrative disputes. “What the administrations must do is to increase the public housing stock”.
Meanwhile, the complaints keep coming. Like that of some tenants of an estate in Bailèn who, they say, live surrounded by legal tourist flats and their slums. But they don’t want to give more details, because they have old rental contracts, and when they complain about it, the owner of the property tells them that if they are not happy to leave, then he will activate the dormant licenses he has to convert their homes into more tourist flats.
And the illegal offer is also disturbing. The presidents of the communities of two estates bordering Roger de Llúria denounce that a very organized group of people are renting flats in the area to divide them with plaster, fill them with mattresses and set up clandestine boarding houses. “They deceive the property by pretending to be a very nice family, and then…”. “The problem here is not the holidays. Couples usually come there.” “But the traffic of strangers with suitcases generates noise, discomfort and uneasiness.” “The elevators are old and can’t keep up.” “The loss of control is total”. The City Council has already opened a case against one of these pensions, and has also started actions at other nearby addresses.
“We are from Vila Olímpica – intervenes a neighbor of Doctor Trueta-. We have a legal flat with 12 places. The customers are young people who come to spend a few days of fun. The batibulls are total. I once found a guiri on my terrace. And the owner doesn’t care, he doesn’t even live in the city. He has a phone to report incidents, but calling him is useless. We don’t care, we estimate that he earns more than 400 euros a day! We tried to raise the community’s fees and he sued us. I call the Urban Guard continuously, I have audios of what is heard in my house, we have reported it up to 26 times in the last seven years, but they always tell us that the flat has a license”.
