Plan to provide more housing

The Balearic Tourism Ministry is studying a proposal which would involve the legalisation of new hotel beds in exchange for the hotel owners paying a levy which would be used to finance the construction of more “protected” or council housing in Majorca. The Tourism Minister, Celesti Alomar, said yesterday that there are hundreds of illegal or unauthorised hotel and apartment bed spaces built before 1984 which are either being used to house workers in low season or as illegal tourist accommodation during the summer. The Minister's idea is to calculate the area of square metres the illegal accommodation covers and translate a similar area into secure government housing by using the money raised by the hotel levy in co-operation with the Balearic Housing Institute. Should the plan become law it will be included in the Balearic's autonomous General Tourism Law and according to Alomar's initial calculations,could provide over an extra 1'000 homes in the Balearics. The project will especially benefit those who are finding it impossible to meet the inflated house prices in the region.