The Generalitat is preparing a new package of measures to deal with the housing emergency and try to expand the offer of affordable rent. Among these measures, a drastic regulation that fully affects the tourist apartment sector. The new regulations subject this type of rental to planning regulations and oblige owners to apply for a license for a maximum of five years if they want to continue operating. Obtaining this license or not will depend on each municipality and its urban planning approach.
"They will close us in five years, they want to eliminate the housing for tourist use... Barcelona has opened a very intense debate, we need to find a culprit and they have pointed to us", laments David Riba, president of the Catalan Federation of 'Tourist Apartments. The Minister of Urbanism, Ester Capella, and several technicians from the department met this week with the representatives of this sector to outline the main points of the new regulations, which are expected to be approved in the coming weeks through 'a decree.
The meeting was not without tension: "They have not taken us into account at any time, until now, when they wanted to make a regulation it was in a consensual way, with dialogue, and now they will approve this regulation without submitting the public exhibition", regrets Riba. Ministry sources maintain that the document is still being worked on and that some legal nuances are being polished.
The new regulations are part of the housing emergency situation and the aim is to give municipalities tools to be able to limit the activity of tourist rentals through their urban planning. The regulation would apply to towns where the residential market is more tense, such as Barcelona and the rest of the municipalities in the metropolitan area. It remains to be seen to what extent the regulation can affect other towns and cities in Catalonia, where the weight of tourist rentals is very significant and where second homes play a prominent role.
Currently, the Generalitat has registered 100,409 tourist homes in Catalonia. 42% are on the Costa Brava. In Barcelona, there are 11% of tourist apartments, which translates into 9,506 homes, "a figure that has remained almost unchanged in the city since 2014, because there are already some urban restrictions in force", says Riba.
According to Federatur data, those for tourist use represent 2.56% of the total housing stock in Catalonia and 1.17% of Barcelona's, "so the incidence of homelessness, if there is, it is minimal. In addition, the effect on the rise in prices is nil - he argues - because in municipalities with tourist housing and without, prices have grown by the same percentage".
Currently, tourist accommodation is regulated by the Tourism Act of the Generalitat. This regulation was approved in 2015 and was controversial, because it was quite simple, you had to register, but the aim was that all the flats that were being rented out to tourists at that time were surveyed and had a real X-ray of the sector, and that they pay the taxes and the corresponding tourist tax", explains Marian Muro, then Director General of Tourism of the Generalitat and now tourism consultant. "The regulation that proposes, in practice, the disappearance of this sector, is a clear expropriation and generates a great legal uncertainty", adds Muro.
The sector regrets, first of all, that the regulations have been drafted without being able to participate in the debate. "We knew months ago that they were looking at regulating the rental of tourist apartments; in May we asked for a meeting with the people in charge of the ministry and they didn't call us until this week", explains Riba, who also regrets that other measures have not been put on the table to bring flats to the conventional rental market, especially in Barcelona.
According to the data collected by Apartur from the municipal census, Barcelona has a stock of 808,751 homes, of which 89,675 (11.08%) are not intended as a main home. The city has almost 9,000 empty flats, 26,691 for economic activities, such as hairdressers, lawyers, doctors, notaries, etc., 2,500 housing for students and 9,323 occupied by medium-term residents (the called temporary contracts of more than one month and less than one year) "which are growing exponentially and which operate outside the Urban Leasing Law (LAU) and any measure that limits rents", maintains the president of Federation
To these homes must be added the 6,234 active tourist homes. "If what they want is to put more flats for conventional rent, other measures could also be assessed and force offices that are installed in flats in residential blocks to go down to the premises, of which there are many that are empty in the city" , says David Riba, who adds that for two years the sector has been working on a new quality seal to certify its activity, and we are waiting for the Generalitat to approve it".
