The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodriguezwarned this Monday of the risk of liberalizing land without regulating its use and has promised that The Government will be “very forceful” to fight against speculation. He did so at the inauguration of a monographic forum on housing organized by his department and held just one day after the PP announced a battery of measures to facilitate access to housing, initiatives to which the Government contrasts a model based in the expansion of the real estate stock, the shielding of public housing and the fight against speculation. Along these lines, it is expected that the Executive will take advantage of this Monday’s event precisely to announce a plan with initiatives that promote the construction of public housing and stop the proliferation of tourist apartments.
“Liberalizing land is not more affordability. Offering more supply if there is no more regulation is not more affordability,” the minister warned, in reference to the popular party’s proposal to advocate this way to promote housing construction in Spain. “More supply without control does not guarantee access to a home for the majority, but rather leads us to a boom that caused so much damage and has left so many scars,” he recalled, stressing that the provision of land for construction must be accompanied by regulation. “Open bar and deregulation do not work,” he stressed.
“Investing in public and social housing is the most effective solution to guarantee the right to housing,” added Rodríguez, who stressed that the public park must be protected “permanently” and stated that the disqualification of 2, 7 million protected homes in the last four decades has been a “capital sin.” “We are going to make a quantitative leap, but also a qualitative one”he expressed, trusting in the prompt conversion of SEPES into the new public housing company.
Likewise, Rodríguez has insisted on the need to approve the land law “once and for all” and emphasizing that The private sector is an “ally” to expand the housing supply. The reform of the land law is pending after the Government withdrew it in May of last year before it was voted on in Congress due to the lack of support to move it forward.
The minister has stressed that article 47 of the Constitution urges administrations to develop land regulation in accordance with the general interest to prevent speculation and has committed to moving forward in that line, at the same time that she has urged the autonomous communities to work hand in hand and apply the housing law with the declaration of stressed areas, as Catalonia has already done, a step that, according to Rodríguez, has allowed rents to be lowered by 5%, compared to the growth in prices in other large cities .
Rodríguez was in charge of inaugurating the day organized by her own ministry, under the title “Housing, fifth pillar of the welfare state.” It is expected that it will be the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who will close the event at mid-morning. As they have advanced The Country and Chain Beingthe socialist leader prepares the announcement of a dozen measures to tackle the housing crisiswhich would include tax credits for landlords who put an empty apartment on the market or rehabilitate their property, shielding of social rental housing and an increase in taxation for tourist accommodation.
The forum will focus on expanding the affordable housing stock and rent regulation and mobilization residential with debate tables in which representatives of SEPES, ICO, Provivienda, the College of Registrars, Alokabide and Nasuvinsa, among other organizations, will participate. Among the public, a large presence of members of the socialist wing of the Government with a dozen ministers is expected.
The event promoted by the Ministry of Housing this Monday takes place after the PP barons met over the weekend in Asturias to outline a common roadmap. Fruit of the conclave, Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party has agreed to reduce the purchase tax to 4% in its autonomous regions of a second-hand home by young people, extend public guarantees up to 40 years of age, reduce housing taxation, simplify the administrative procedures associated with construction and liberalize public land, as well as work for the repeal of the law of housing and promote a new land law and a law against squatting.
Moncloa sources describe the popular housing plan as a “bouquet of empty ideas and measures that already exist.” The Government charges against the opposition, which they accuse of “improvising.” “Once again, the PP takes the housing problem as a joke,” lament the same sources, ensuring that Feijóo’s party “fails in its attempt to deploy a constructive opposition and an agenda with serious alternatives.”
#Rodríguez #warns #risk #liberalizing #land #regulation #promises #fight #speculation #open #bar #work
