HEALTHPLAN MAGAZINE

Unidas Podemos announced on Monday that it is negotiating with ERC and EH Bildu to present an amendment through which it will force a vote in Congress next Thursday to allow the new housing law to limit the number of tourist apartments in ‘stressed’ areas.

This proposal would involve intervening in the market in such important capitals such as Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Malaga, including popular tourist centres such as Marbella, Mijas, Chiclana de la Frontera, Torrevieja, Estepona and Benidorm.

Specifically, Podemos advocates setting a limit in areas declared as stressed markets, which will depend on the autonomous communities and which, with the new housing law, will allow price limits to be established. The limit proposed by the party would affect the number of tourist apartments, whose amount could not exceed the equivalent of 2% of the number of inhabitants in that area. This would mean, for example, that in an area with 10,000 residents, no more than 200 places in tourist rental apartments could be offered.

In most of Spain's major cities, where housing access problems have worsened greatly in recent years due to rising rents, the number of places in tourist apartments exceeds 2% of the total population. This is the case, for example, in Barcelona, where according to official data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), 1.63 million people live, and there are 36,115 places in tourist accommodation: equivalent to 2.21%. The same applies in Valencia, where the percentage rises to 2.57%, and in Seville or San Sebastian, where it reaches 3%.

Podemos will try to force an 'in extremis' vote to try to include a limit on tourist apartments in the housing law. However, of the major provincial capitals, the most affected are Cadiz, Granada, Malaga, and Alicante, in that order. In the city of Cadiz, for example, there are 6,412 places in tourist accommodation registered when the city has just over 113,000 inhabitants, which is equivalent to a staggering 5.67%. To comply with Podemos’ proposed legislation, more than 4,100 of these places would have to be eliminated. The same would happen in Granada (5,600 places to be eliminated out of the 10,242 registered), Malaga (the current 25,043 places would have to be reduced by 13,400) or Alicante (almost 7,000 surplus tourist places).

On the contrary, the number of places in tourist apartments located in Madrid, Palma or Zaragoza does not reach 2% of their total population. However, being such large cities, this figure is not representative of the most touristy areas, and the best example is the capital, where the situation in the peripheral neighbourhoods is radically different from that in the centre. According to INE data, neighbourhoods such as Lavapies or Malasana have a high concentration of tourist apartments, which in some census sections far exceed 10% of the total registered housing.

Coastal towns will be affected most

However, the most serious problem with the number of tourist apartment places in relation to the number of residents is had by many of Spain's main coastal destinations. One of the largest, Marbella (Malaga), has a population of 150,725 inhabitants and almost 35,000 places in tourist use housing, the equivalent of no less than 23.2% of its entire census. That means that if the Marbella City Council considered that its entire city is a stressed market area and applied the proposal of Unidas Podemos, the Malaga town would have to get rid of almost 32,000 of its 35,000 places in tourist use housing, the most in all of Spain.

Very similar figures occur in the case of Mijas, also on the Costa del Sol, where of the 18,860 places in tourist apartments, 17,070 would be left over to adapt to the 2% limit proposed by Unidas Podemos. In Torrevieja (Alicante), for its part, almost 15,700 tourist housing places would have to be eliminated from the current 17,300. And similar situations are found in Estepona, Fuengirola, Torremolinos or Benalmádena (Malaga), Arona (Tenerife), Benidorm or Orihuela (Alicante) or San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria).

However, even more striking percentages of the number of places in tourist apartments in relation to the number of residents are found in municipalities of less than 50,000 inhabitants located, likewise, in first-class coastal destinations. For example, in Dénia (Alicante), 43,900 people are registered, and the number of tourist rental places amounts to the equivalent of 40% of the total population: about 17,600, of which 16,700 would be left over with Unidas Podemos' proposal. The figure is even more striking in La Oliva (Fuerteventura), with about 28,000 inhabitants and no less than 13,832 rental places in tourist apartments, which is practically equivalent to 50% of its population.

There are towns in which this index that Unidas Podemos wants to limit to 2% even exceeds 50%, such as Jávea (Alicante), with 28,731 registered residents and no less than 16,641 tourist housing places that would be left in little less than 600 if the city council wanted to apply Unidas Podemos' proposal. Also, in the Alicante municipality of Calpe, there are 15,932 tourist rental places with just over 24,000 registered inhabitants: the equivalent of more than 66% of the total population. And there are places where the number of tourist rental places even exceeds the total population of the municipality: this is the case of Pollença (Mallorca), where 17,126 people are registered and there are 17,472 places in apartments for rent to tourists.

In the event that Congress approves the proposed amendment on Thursday, April 27, it could result in tighter regulations on the purchase of limited property in Spain by foreigners. Although the tourism industry has expressed some resistance to the proposal, Unidas Podemos maintains that it is crucial to guarantee the equitable distribution of tourism benefits throughout the community.

Sources

https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/5121776/0/grandes-capitales-y-nucleos-costeros-estas-son-las-ciudades-a-las-que-afectaria-el-tope-a-los-pisos-turisticos-que-propone-podemos/
https://murciatoday.com/proposal_to_limit_tourist_accommodation_in_cities_and_coastal_resorts_across_spain_2110399-a.html