The Government's plan to reduce the wait for building permits to one month

BarcelonaThe testimonies of companies that chose to set up in Aragon and not in Catalonia after the pandemic caused a lot of controversy and reached Parliament. “The political and technical agility of the Aragonese government is brutal: if you call them, they are already receiving you within 48 hours, and they move very quickly,” explained the representative of a company to ARA. “Between opening a warehouse in Lleida or opening it in Fraga, which is right next door, there is a big difference in advantages,” assured another person.

Now the executive of Salvador Illa wants to reverse the situation. This Monday the president presented a bill to simplify procedures and shorten deadlines, both for opening businesses and for building housing. "It is good politics, useful politics," said Illa at an event at the Ebro factory. Sources from the Generalitat have stressed that the proposal will alter "the procedure" of a dozen laws and five regulations, but that, in no case, do they plan to modify the content of the norms: "We have not set out to deregulate or abolish any requirement, what we are saying is that there can be more agile ways to verify compliance with the requirements," they guarantee.

The project will be submitted to public consultation until September 30 – citizens and the sector will be able to have their say – and will reach Parliament at the end of the year. Specifically, the Government wants to have a say in obtaining building permits – permits to carry out the work –; urban planning – it defines the uses of a territory –; and environmental licenses and authorizations. "It cannot be that in Catalonia everything takes so long," warned the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau. However, how will it be reversed?

Responsibility, in the private sector

The Generalitat proposes that to obtain a building permit, an expert report should be sufficient, instead of municipal technicians verifying that the project complies with all laws. Dalmau has assured that it is a "bet on trust" and has defended that the private sector "should assume shared responsibility". To issue these reports, the executive is creating a new figure, the Collaborating Entities for Certification in the Urban Planning Field (ECAU), which will assume responsibility for the decision. They will have to undergo annual audits and have insurance of at least 5 million euros.

The licensing period will change from an average of nine to twelve months to a maximum of one month. The Government will require promoters of the 50,000 Plan to process licenses with this modality in order to speed up deadlines as much as possible, while the rest will be able to choose between this route and the traditional one through municipal technicians. Regarding whether having to depend on another private actor will skyrocket the price of procedures, government sources have assured that what most increases the cost of processes is the delay in timings.

Until these ECAUs begin to be established, professional bodies that can demonstrate sufficient knowledge in the matter will temporarily be in charge. Promoters and other companies in the sector will not be able to be constituted as ECAUs a priori in order to avoid conflicts of interest. The Catalan executive has defended that Galicia, the Valencian Country, the Canary Islands, and the Community of Madrid are moving towards similar systems.

Urban planning and environment

In the field of urban planning, the Government argues that chartered technicians should also provide sectoral reports and that, if the relevant administration does not respond within the established deadline, the approval of private parties will be sufficient to move forward with the project. With this initiative, along with the unification of regulations into a single text, the Generalitat expects to reduce the current waiting time of two years to between six and eight months.

In environmental matters, the executive creates a simplified procedure and replaces the sufficiency and suitability process – which can take up to two years – and eliminates the neighborhood information process to include it in the public information process.