The Generalitat has bought, through the Catalan Soil Institute (Incasòl), 385 flats already built, mostly owned by large landlords, to be used for social rent. These are seven buildings, located in municipalities with a high demand for affordable housing such as Salt, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Constantí, Reus, Valls and Barcelona, for which the Administration has disbursed around 42 million euros.
The cost of rehabilitation must be added to this figure, as many of the properties, such as the development of 24 homes acquired in Salt, are in very poor condition. The Generalitat cannot yet specify the distribution by municipality of the other floors until all acquisitions have been formalized.
The properties are part of the large package of 10,000 social rental homes that the Government pledged in March to have over a three-year horizon, by 2026. Flats with which the social rental stock will increase by 18%, currently in about 55,000 flats.
The proposed 10,000 flats are expected to be achieved through different formulas: approximately 2,100 will be Incasòl's own production; a thousand more will be built on plots of land from Incasòl that will be given to private developers and about 5,000, which are already underway, will be run by private individuals or cooperatives thanks to European aid or development subsidies.
There is a fourth way, which is the direct purchase of housing by the Generalitat, which includes the 385 empty flats from large landlords, announced yesterday, and 307 more individual flats, distributed throughout the geography, acquired by the Housing Agency of Catalonia. The aim is to buy 1,500 homes for a value of around 150 million euros to allocate to the most needy families before the end of 2026.
The Minister of Territory, Ester Capella, assured yesterday that "we are already close to 50% of what is planned in the road map" and took the opportunity once again to request the free transfer of the properties that are owned by the Sareb to the Administration . "Citizens already paid a bank bailout at the time, it's about there being a social return", he explained.
The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, highlighted the "unprecedented paradigm shift" and "turning point since a year ago" by the Government to increase social rent. "We are using all the tools at our disposal so that public housing takes a leap forward", Aragonès said, although he pointed out that there is still a long way to go.
One of the goals set in the short term is to regulate housing for tourist use and seasonal rentals.
