Business

Catalan parliament approves watered-down plans to regulate tourist rentals

New regulations brought in to tackle housing shortage in Spanish region, but lawmakers draw line at cap on numbers

The new Catalan regulations will increase controls on the issuing of licences allowing properties to be rented out in the Spanish region. Photograph: iStock

Guy Hedgecoe
Wed Dec 20 2023 - 18:31

The parliament of Catalonia in Spain has approved new regulations governing tourist flats but has watered down the regional government’s original proposal to introduce an across-the-board cap on numbers.

Lawmakers in the northeastern Spanish region approved the local government’s decree-law, unveiled last month, but made changes which mean that town and city halls will decide how many licences for tourist properties are made available. That contrasts with the regional government’s initial proposal, which sought to introduce a limit of 10 such properties for every 100 inhabitants. Such a cap would have meant the closure of about 28,000 flats.

[ Spanish region of Catalonia to vote on limiting number of lets for tourist apartments ]

The governing Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) presented the proposal as a solution to a shortage of affordable housing in many parts of Catalonia. However, it accepted the changes in exchange for the support in the vote of the socialists, who had warned that the original measures were too invasive.

The new regulations will increase controls on the issuing of licences allowing properties to be rented out, which will expire after five years. Town halls will have to draw up schemes for managing the awarding of the licenses.

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“This gives town halls autonomy,” said Òscar Ordeig, of the Socialists’ Party of Catalonia. “You can’t treat Catalonia uniformly because the Pyrenees cannot be regulated in the same way as Barcelona.”

Business groups had criticised the Catalan government’s original plan, claiming that it would have a devastating effect on the local economy, which depends heavily on tourism.

Parties on the right voted against the amended initiative, including the pro-independence Together for Catalonia (JxCat). “Who will pay for this?” said Joan Canadell of JxCat. “The [tourist] industry, town halls and thousands of owners of second homes.”

Spain had 340,400 tourist flats operating this year, the highest number so far registered, according to the National Statistics Institute.

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