The Proinba association of property developers in the Balearics believes that town halls are showing a lack of will by not adopting measures set out in the government's housing emergency decree.
On Friday, the vice president, Óscar Carreras, said that town halls are wasting the opportunity offered by the government to provide "decent and affordable" housing. "Developers are always accused of speculating, but they are being given the opportunity to build homes without consuming land or extra resources."
Calvia is one town hall to have adopted the measures, but won't, for example, allow commercial premises on resort frontlines to be converted into homes. In Palma, various areas of the city have been excluded.
There is generally a reluctance to permit floors to be added to buildings, which is another of the measures, while certain town halls have also ruled out converting large apartments into separate smaller ones. Manacor is an example of a town hall that has vetoed all the measures.
"There is no excuse," Carreras insisted. And the president of Proinba, Luís Martín, added that town halls' responses have been "regrettable". "They've been given an opportunity and municipalities of all political colours are rejecting it."
Town halls, he said, should be more positive in seeking to solve a structural problem in the Balearics - that of a lack of decent, affordable housing. In his view, the decree is "philosophically good, but technically improvable".
Martín praised the Prohens government for wanting to simplify planning procedures. This should speed up the pace of construction. "We have an annual deficit of between 2,500 and 3,000 homes being built and 98% that are affordable."
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The government/councils always say that they can't build affordable housing as the price of land is too expensive. But the government/councils own a lot of land that they could build on. Like the old prison and guardia civil barracks in Palma for example. But they prefer to sell off this land to developers for a nice profit and get a fortune from the building permits etc. The developers will build/sell whatever gives them the most profit - rarely will that be affordable housing. The government/councils of all colours are totally useless and have failed their constituents, all for short term greed.