Soller town hall wants part of Puerto Soller, the old area of Santa Catalina, to be declared "saturated" for the purposes of holiday rentals. The town hall has made this submission to the Council of Majorca, which has been seeking responses to its zoning scheme for rentals.
On the Council's map for zoning, Puerto Soller is shown in orange, meaning that it is not deemed to be saturated and can have holiday rentals which are made available 365 days a year. Soller itself and Biniaraix are both shown in purple, which means that there can only be rentals for a maximum of sixty days a year; the purple for inland places denotes saturation. The town hall therefore wants Santa Catalina to have the same rule as Soller itself.
The mayor, Jaume Servera, says that the Council of Majorca believes that Puerto Soller is only a residential area with second homes and doesn't have a "village life". This is a false impression. Santa Catalina is being turned "into a hotel" and residents, adds the mayor, are complaining that the majority of holiday rentals are operated by investor owners who have acquired properties in order to rent them out. It has therefore become saturated with high tourism pressure.
The Partido Popular opposition at the town hall - Servera is a member of Més - believes that classifying Soller itself as saturated is an error, so it doesn't agree with Santa Catalina falling into the same category. But the principle that the Council has applied for town hall submissions is that these can only call for greater restriction and not less.
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Majorca is like the NHS, it's a victim of it's own success.
It's just the way the world has evolved. Their are plenty places like that in the UK too, for example Southwold, where virtually every house is now a second home or holiday rental . Majorca has and always will rely on tourism for their business. And I have said this before. If Majorca suffers a loss in income over the coming years it will be the locals who will foot the bill. Maybe get the majorcan government to start investing in affordable housing.
We know Santa Catalina very very well as we own a property there since 1990 . We do not rent it out for various reasons, one of then is that there is something else then money-grabbing. and we do not want to in a certain way bother locals Therefor we also know most of the people who live there all year round for decades. I can understand their concerns . It's a narrow street community and feels very claustrophobic in some months of the year. Some people get out at early mornings and get back into their houses by 10/ or 11 in the morning. .They are also the victim of rental investment companies and people who go crazy for one week, leave and are replaced by others. Also local young people or people who work round the prt cannot rent a place to live because of the strange rental law ( not only related to Pto de Soller ). It's only a matter of putting everything in the right proportions.Juste common sense. Same with Soller which is already becoming un-livable once the first of the many trains arrivres from Palma with umbrella following sheep
Soller is at the higher end of Majorca’s tourist market. It seems now that the rich aren’t welcome anymore. Talk about bite the foot that feeds it.
I am fed up to the back teeth with seeing the "saturated " word,keep up this anti-tourist negativity and it won't be long before you are back on you are begging for tourists.