Recourse to justice as a way to stop real estate developments is an increasingly frequent phenomenon. It is sometimes used by social or neighborhood entities in order to avoid what they consider environmental or urban planning abuses, which are protected by a laxity of the norm that, they say, always benefits the developers. These, for their part, defend an activity that now appears vital as a possible solution to the growing problem of access to housing, and in which they risk their capital.
The developers, through the Association of Real Estate Developers of Madrid (Asprima), have opened the door by denouncing the paralysis of a thousand homess, among them 300 public, in the Montegancedo area (Pozuelo de Alarcón). They regretted that after more than twenty years of processing, this urban area was suspended in July by court order due to a lawsuit filed in 2022, when the urbanization of the area had already begun. The matter is being appealed before the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid.
“This is why housing policies do not work, and this is why the current supply is much lower than the needs of society,” explains Jorge Ginés, general director of Asprima. His organization watched in despair as the new neighborhood of Montegancedo was provisionally paralyzed ‘sine die’ by court order. “At a time when it is urgent to offer apartments, it is too easy to resort to one area and paralyze it.” And he concludes: “With this legal uncertainty it will be impossible to end the housing problem in Spain.”
But the vision is very different for citizen entities: the Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations recognizes that in the last two decades urban planning has become very judicialized, but they understand it as the only weapon they have had to avoid what they consider “the liberality with which the norm is interpreted.
The general director of Asprima recalls that the process to build an urban development involves “various filters” and validations. “That a complaint like the one in Montegancedo is accepted for processing when it is already being urbanized goes against what we need, which is housing, and quickly.” For this reason, he believes that “this type of complaints and actions should be limited in time.”
This is not an isolated case: Asprima recalls other urban developments that have come up against Justice. “Los Carriles, in Alcobendas: the partial plan is approved in 2019 and in 2022 there is a ruling from the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid” that admitted some claims from environmental groups. The area, for them, is the last undeveloped natural area in Alcobendas, on which 8,600 homes are planned to be built, half of them protected.
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It is the deficit that they calculate in Asprima at the national level
The partial plan that established the organization of this territory was approved in 2019 with the votes of the PP and two Ciudadanos councilors who skipped the voting discipline. The 2022 TSJM ruling declared the plan null. The City Council has approved in parallel another partial plan (in June 2024) and the reparcelling based on the partial plan annulled by ruling.
Jorge Ginés is convinced that what really causes the price of land to rise are these delays. In San Sebastián de los Reyes, an appeal to the courts of the previous local government paralyzed the construction of 600 homes from the Vive Plan, until a ruling by the TSMJ inadmissible the appeal. And remember that «Valdebebas had up to four stoppages, due to admission to the appeal process, the last one with the houses about to be handed over; something insane and Kafkaesque. Ginés does not believe that the areas “paralyze them as a sport, but it is very easy; “The judge has to admit it to processing unless he has a law.”
Close to governments
To prevent these situations from continuing to be repeated, Asprima advocates “putting a stop to it” and proposes that “the Legal Security Law be approved, both that of the PSOE and that of the PP, because they are equal; “Anyone would end this.” In May, an attempt was made to approve it but it ended up being withdrawn “due to political tactics,” he says.
Their approaches are refuted by the head of urban planning for the Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations (FRAVM), Quique Villalobos: «In Asprima, whenever they get nervous they get what they want: they are very close to the governments, and their capacity to influence is very high.”
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that could be achieved by transforming offices into residential would be at risk because “there are city councils that have already said in plenary session that the regulatory change approved by the Community is inapplicable.”
As an example of what he says, he points out that “they managed to raise the price of subsidized housing by 30 percent.” This refers to the rise of the module to build this typology, which had been frozen for years, something that generated complaints from the builders. Since February, it has been among the 1,900 and 2,820 euros, depending on the municipality and the type of protection.
Villalobos acknowledges that “they are right that in the last twenty years, the urban planning field has been judicialized.” But he argues that this occurs because “that resource was only left to the people, due to the liberality in the application of urban planning regulations.” He gives as an example the General Plan of ’97, which “allows a developmentalism that does not comply with the Land Law.” For this reason, “it would be desirable for urban planning to be less judicialized, and also for it to be less discretionary.”
He agrees with Asprima on the need for legal certainty, but “this must go in all directions, because when you sign up for a housing promotion and in the end it turns out that it costs you twice what they told you, there should also be that legal certainty. From the neighborhood associations “we are not against construction, but to solve the current lack of housing, we cannot rely on a single measure.”
empty floors
Therefore, look towards the “180,000 empty homes in Madrid, according to the INE.” And although he is convinced that “they are not even remotely habitable, even if half were habitable, we still have tens of thousands of empty homes that would be viable to put on the real estate market.” Maybe this way, he adds, “there would be no need to build in the next ten years.”
Yes, they are against “building in protected areas, or risk areas such as flood zones. A tree that is 200 years old costs another 200 years to replace,” he recalls. Hence they reject plans to “build developments on land with high ecological value.” A path that they are following, he denounces, “the latest omnibus laws of the Community of Madrid”, which in his opinion “are aberrant.”
Defend this position “should not be at odds with being able to build». But it must be done “in compliance with the percentage of protected housing”, and with truly accessible prices because “what is now called affordable housing is only a euphemism: the fact that the price of the protection module is 2,200 euros per square meter is not affordable; “Family purchasing power in the last 15 years has not grown like this.”
Villalobos is convinced that “there is the possibility of carrying out respectful urban planning, the land can be freed up in old disused infrastructures, and the housing stock in the cities can be closed.” But to achieve this, urban planning also has to be “more participatory, so that not only Asprima is on the council of wise men that reviews the Madrid Urban Planning Plan, and we are not.”
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