The Balearic government's emergency housing decree, currently being processed by parliament, will have an amendment designed to address accommodation problems for seasonal workers in the hotel and general hospitality industries.
At present, there are plots of land classified as being for tourism use, which basically means hotels. The amendment would allow these plots to be reclassified as residential but only for use as housing for workers. Buildings on these plots would have to be for community residential use with common spaces - 'coliving' or 'cohousing'.
As well as seasonal workers, these buildings could also provide accommodation for permanent employees.
In general, these plots would be next to hotels. Since the 1990s, a feature of urban planning has been something referred to as POOT. Essentially, this allocates quotas of land for tourism use.
When the regulations were drawn up, there were 37 tourist zones in Mallorca to which POOT applied. Municipal urban plans will nowadays indicate the uses of various plots of land - residential, tourism, commercial and others.
