The official statement of new tension areas at the end of July has meant a small oxygen ball for the government. President Pedro Sánchez referred to housing as a “priority issue”, during his balance of the political course and the Ministry of Housing, he hopes to “intensify” the bilateral negotiations with the autonomous communities that have agreed to adhere to the new state plan, some of them governed by the Popular Party. This plan is not trivial, because it allows the Executive to transfer hundreds of millions of euros to the autonomies that accept their requirements, conditioning some of their policies.
The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, had already warned in September the “Insumisas” autonomous communities with the State Housing Law that the Executive “would condition the financing” they receive from the central state, something that those governed by the PP had labeled “blackmail.” And that stick and carrot strategy is the one that is putting into practice in recent months on several fronts: extraordinary items, state plan and promotion by the new state public housing company.
President Sánchez said during his speech on Monday that “the state plan triples the investment.” According to the Executive data, it will go from 2,300 million between 2022 and 2025 to 7,000 for the next five years. “There are autonomous communities that have shown their interest in joining this initiative. Others, for ideological reasons, have refused in round. In any case, we will work with those who want to continue betting on public intervention,” he said.
Specifically, the conditions that Sánchez moved at the Conference of Presidents of the beginning of June in Barcelona were to triple the investment in housing policies and increase co -responsibility to 40%; Permanent protect the houses that are built with public money; and offer official data transparently. In that sense, Housing indicates that he has maintained “first contacts” with Euskadi, Catalunya, Navarra and Asturias, with socialist or coalition governments, the Canary Islands and Galicia, with or of the PP.
“Our will is that all (communities) can be added, because it is a good agreement for citizenship. The commitments that the government has claimed are common sense and sense of country,” explain ministerial sources, which allege a “social clamor that asks the public authorities to do everything in our hands to guarantee their right to housing.” However, other sources consulted indicate that they have not adhered to the plan because, “among other things, the minimum details enforceable to do so are unknown.”
This is the case of Aragon, for example, that they affirm that “it meets the economic requirements, since it has more than doubled the investment in housing, the commitment to the increase of the public park is undublished and is in favor of increasing the period of disqualification of VPO.” “The problem is that at this point the plan in detail is still not known, because they have not even spent a draft in the meetings held with the general addresses, or what programs will be incorporated or when the sector conference between the Ministry and the communities will be convened,” they indicate.
From the Ministry of Housing they insisted last week that there is still no closed agreement. The department directed by Isabel Rodríguez responded to what they called a “bulge” of the Popular Party, which “leaked a letter addressed to the minister in which they accused her of having announced an agreement on the state plan.” “There was never any announcement of agreement, the newspaper library can be consulted,” said these sources, which did indicate that “they are working bilaterally” with the communities that had said yes to the commitments claimed by Sánchez.
The map of tensioning areas
The other great lever on which the Ministry of Housing has the entire legislature trying to pressure are the tension areas. They are so much because of the effect on the prices that the Executive affirms that it produces, based on the experience of Catalonia, as well as by the authorization to other extraordinary measures. With this Tuesday’s incorporations to the Official State Gazette, more than eight million people already live in municipalities with rental prices controls. Among them, Barcelona, Donostia, Pamplona or Coruña, the first city in an autonomous community of the PP to join the measure, against the criteria of the Xunta, but with its approval, something that has not happened in other regions.
Precisely, the communities that have declared tensioning areas have done with different nuances. Catalunya was the first one who opted for this tool. Currently, there are 271 municipalities where, according to housing data, rental prices have dropped 4.9%. In the case of Barcelona, the most populous city under this formula has been 8.9%. In this case, the measure was promoted by Generalitat itself, as in Navarra. Galicia, on the other hand, yielded to the requests of Coruña after 20 months of bureaucratic labyrinth already scolding. He did it “in compliance with the law”, ensuring that “he will not solve the problem of access to housing” and breaking the consensus of the PP.
Euskadi, meanwhile, has chosen to agree with the municipalities trianual plans that accompany the declaration of tensioning zone, which may include a range of initiatives, mainly aimed at increasing the supply of housing and protecting demand. “We understand that price limitation and intervention is necessary, but it can be a palliative measure. We want the changes to be structural,” they point out from the Basque Housing Department, where they point to a “more artisanal process, but that bets on municipalism and collaboration between administrations” and that gives “legal certainty”, by having the approval of the municipalities.
Euskadi will ask for the incorporation of Bilbao in September
In this sense, to the seven areas already published in the BOE, Euskadi plans to incorporate another nine, with which more than 50% of the Basque population would be covered. The most immediate will be Bilbao, which would become the second most populous city declared a tension zone, Astigarra and Usurbil, which would be published in the autonomic bulletin predictably in September, for its jump to the state in the following batch. Then Iran Lezo, Hernani, Zestoa, Arrasate-Mongragón, Vitoria-Gasteiz and Tolosa, which are in different phases.
Precisely, from the Basque Government they are making an effort, together with the municipalities, to declare the municipalities of the Donostia Metropolitan Area, such as Errentería, which was the first, Irún, Lezo, Hernani, Astigarra or Usurbil. The objective is also shielding that population expelled from the provincial capital, with traditionally high prices, to border areas.
The Ministry of Housing is also able to incorporate Santiago de Compostela and several areas of Asturias. Specifically, the Principality is in process for the declaration of 16 areas, distributed by the municipalities of Gijón, Avilés, Langreo, Llanes, Gozón and Cabrales.
Isabel Rodríguez’s team works already giving “priority” to communities that apply or have allowed their municipalities to apply this mechanism. At the end of May, the minister announced that her department was finalizing an extraordinary departure of 35 million euros for those communities that had declared tension or that were in the process of doing so.
The new state company will also enforce this criterion. In fact, the first promotion of 1,600 homes will be distributed by these territories and the first package of 13,000 of the 40,000 properties that are intended to be transferred from Sareb will be in these communities, in addition to Valencia, to alleviate the effects of the DANA. “We are going to start completing efforts with those who are making more efforts,” said the general director of Sepes, Leire Iglesias. “We understand that, in addition to price control, they are committed to an action plan. If we want to get an impact and reverse these situations, we have to act from all fronts.”
Among the pending commitments for the next course is the approval of the fiscal package with which the Ministry wants to mobilize tens of thousands of empty homes. The Plan incorporates a tax increase to the properties that are unemployed and tax bonuses for the owners who lower prices, something so far limited to the tensioning areas and that the Executive wants to expand to reach the rentists with real estate in communities that refuse to implement the measure, to encourage them to lower prices.
Although from the department of Isabel Rodríguez they consider that it is “very difficult to say that no” to this fiscal reform, the truth is that its approval seems complicated. Some parliamentary allies, as Podemos, have already shown their rejection, but even the minority partner of the coalition, add, has put fights to this plan. The second Vice President Yolanda Díaz party has asked the Ministry for a negotiating table to address the new state plan, with an eye to raise the investment in this field to 1% of GDP, about 16,000 million a year – through the Next Generation funds -, for the creation of a large public housing park for non -disqualifiable affordable rental.
Source: www.eldiario.es
