Barcelona City Council announces new developments concerning the application of Decree-law 3/2023, on urgent measures on the urban planning regime for tourist accommodation and the modification of the PGM for obtaining public subsidised housing
Decree-law 3/2023, on urgent measures on the urban planning regime for tourist accommodation (hereinafter DL 3/2023), approved on 7 November, regulates tourist accommodation in a total of 262 municipalities in Catalonia, including Barcelona. All of them are municipalities that either present problems of access to housing or have more than 5 tourist flats per 100 inhabitants, or that meet both requirements.
Over the last few years, Catalonia has been affected by an emerging problem that has spread to practically the whole country, namely the growing tourist accommodation market, which has been intensified exponentially due to the framework formed by the increase in urban tourism, the rise of accommodation marketing platforms and the principle of freedom to provide services that prevails in the European Union.
As a counterpart to this growth, there has been a decrease in the housing stock destined for permanent and regular residential use and, consequently, the regular residential demand in Catalonia cannot be covered, a demand which has only been increasing in recent years.
In a context where the recent Act 12/2023, of 24 May, on the right to housing, is already producing its first effects of rent containment in Catalonia, and especially in Barcelona, it is necessary to mention those measures its City Council has proposed.
On the one hand, because of the enabling made by the DL 3/2023, which is applicable to city councils where housing for tourist accommodation is subject to the prior planning authorisation regime, Barcelona City Council plans to promote the necessary measures to comply with it. The aim is to “guarantee the right to housing for all residents and increase affordable housing stock throughout the city”. The announced measures will consist of:
- Extinguishing, after the five-year transitional period, the 10.101 tourist flats (HUT) currently existing in the city, to increase the housing stock.
- No urban planning that would make the tourist use of housing compatible with its use as a permanent residence shall be promoted.
- The application of the Special Urban Planning for Tourist Accommodation (PEUAT), which establishes zero growth of this type of accommodation in the city and, therefore, the activation of all regulatory mechanisms to guarantee the right to housing in Barcelona.
On the other hand, and with regard to the modification of the PGM (General Metropolitan Plan) for obtaining public subsidised housing (HPP) on consolidated urban land and which foresaw that residential developments with more than 600 m2 of built area or to be built on a plot must set aside 30% of the surface area for public subsidised housing (among other measures), a proposal is made to modify the 30% HPP reserve measure. Specifically, the City Council’s announcement specifies the following measures:
- The possibility that private developers, to make the 30% transfer effective, can place the public subsidised housing on other plots, without the processing of an urban development plan, even relocating it in adjacent neighbourhoods. If there is a difference in market value between one plot and the other, a correction coefficient would be applied. The corrective coefficient, according to the City Council, will be “calculated through a public and transparent mechanism”, but its terms have not been disclosed yet.
- The possibility of a social developer —who in principle would be a third-party non-profit operator— taking over the execution of these dwellings. The City Council, through an agreement, would establish the procedures, responsibilities and deadlines for their execution.
- Ease refurbishment to increase the number of available housings and help guarantee the quality of the residential stock, making the 30% HPP reserve applicable only when the refurbishment is assimilated to new construction, “and exempting the rest of the major refurbishment works, as well as cases of change of use, to make the emergence of dwellings easier in buildings that currently have other uses”.
Therefore, the objective is to ensure that the maximum number of housings are allocated to residential and not tourist use, increasing the housing stock as well as the percentage of HPP in the city. However, as this is only an announcement, it will be necessary to be watchful to the regulatory instruments which develop the presented measures, as well as to the possible litigation that may arise.
Additionally, the link to the press release published by Barcelona City Council on its website is added:
