The Government of Marga Prohens is preparing a decree law that will allow the legalization of more than 30,000 illegal buildings built over the years on rural land on the islands. In Mallorca alone it is estimated that there may be around 30,000 homes that meet these characteristics, but to these we must add those built illegally in Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The vice president of the Balearic Islands, Antoni Costa, has assured that the time has come to stop looking the other way and says that he has to face this problem definitively.
The current situation of these buildings is that the sanction has expired, so the urban authorities cannot order their demolition. However, as these are out-of-order buildings, their owners cannot carry out maintenance work either, so the homes are condemned to degrade over time and become unusable buildings.
The decree law that the Prohens team is working on will allow these homes to appear and be legal, but in exchange the owners must pay a financial penalty proportional to the cost of the illegal work. In this way, swimming pools, porches and other illegally built elements may also be legalized. The owners will be obliged to incorporate energy and water efficiency measures in the buildings.
The rustic land of the Balearic Islands has historically been an object of desire for those who want to build a house in the countryside and urban planning pressure has moved from the coastal areas to the interior of the islands. An attempt has been made to curb urban planning pressure in the countryside with successive restrictive laws and regulations that have had relative success, especially in Mallorca and Ibiza. In Menorca it is prohibited to give residential use to rural land.
The Balearic opposition flatly rejects this legalization proposal. He defends that offenders are rewarded, who will now be able to sell their houses at a price much higher than what would legally correspond to them. The Government of Marga Prohens has not clarified whether the decree will also allow the owners of these legalized homes to do business with them and use them for vacation rentals. The vice president of the Government was not categorical on this matter, although he pointed out that, most likely, the legalized homes will not be able to change to tourist use.
The legalization is inserted in a decree law of administrative simplification that also incorporates measures to streamline bureaucratic procedures. One of the most significant, inspired by the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is the possibility for city councils to privatize the municipal licensing service. The objective is to expedite the construction of homes as much as possible in a community where access to an apartment is the main problem for citizens.
There are also options to privatize the ITV service so that any authorized workshop can carry out the inspections. The aim is to end queues and delays of up to two months to get an appointment for an inspection. The ITVs are controlled by the councils since they have had the competence transferred for several years.
Another measure that has generated controversy is the suppression of the Balearic Environmental Medication Commission, a body in charge of carrying out environmental evaluations of projects in which social and environmental entities participated. The Government of Marga Prohens questions the role that this entity has played and assures that it has been politicized. The vice president of the Government has even claimed that he intentionally delayed the procedures so that businessmen would give up on their projects. From now on, environmental reports will be made by technicians, supervised by a general director of the Government itself.
