Housing: have a clear head
Junts currently occupies all the headlines for its no to the housing decrees, despite the fact that all other parties have been swallowing toads to approve a text that alleviates the serious situation suffered by many families. Affordable housing will not arrive without policy, and yesterday I started reading Vida y obra de Ildefonso Cerdá, written by Fabià Estapé, to understand what allowed the city of Barcelona to resolve serious public health issues and urbanize the Barcelona Plan around 1850. The works of Pedro Felipe Monlau, Joaquin Salarich and José Font Mosela, as well as the fifteen hundred pages of the Teoria General d’Urbanització, managed to objectify the living conditions of the day laborers confined within the walls of Barcelona. Cerdà's Eixample took decades to consolidate, due to the continuous conflicts of interest between property rights and the easements of the general plan. But there were clear objectives, and the very implementation of the streets overcame the controversies and constant boycotts from multiple fronts.
Last Tuesday, September 29th, the Government announced that it would strengthen housing policies to “expand access to a home and protect families”: a new emergency housing fund, the joint purchase of housing (which was rejected by Parliament), and the expansion of emancipation loans. The press release was accompanied by calculations on the level of compliance with the 50,000 Plan in which it was stated that “45,551 homes of the 50,000 in the plan are already underway”. Paper can withstand anything, but if we already had these 45,551 protected homes, we would not be as overwhelmed as we are now. It is as if we were counting patients who are on a waiting list as if they had already been treated. Are the apartments ready to accommodate families who are excluded from the residential market, yes or no?
For me, originally, the 50,000 Plan had the virtue that it committed to generating a significant volume of new affordable permanent rental housing, and that there was room to achieve them. But to build public stock, not everything goes. Now it turns out that many of these apartments will no longer be for rent, but will be for purchase. And very atomized purchases: wherever families or young people choose. For years, there has been an attempt to acquire apartments strategically grouped in buildings, to facilitate their management. Thus, when an opportunity for right of first refusal arose, an attempt was made to buy apartments in the same building, to have a majority in the community. Because these 50,000 will have to be managed: and who will fix the boiler of an apartment bought halfway with a family on the second floor of a private block? Who will pay the community expenses? Who will authorize the investment in photovoltaic panels if the Generalitat only owns half of a third-floor apartment in a community of thirty other apartments?
The social response to the terrible eviction of Maricarmen Abascal has put pressure on the parliamentary groups, and now everything is a rush to make it seem like the situation is under control. But in terms of housing there are many options and, naturally, discrepancies will have to be managed; above all, to avoid sterile controversies. Below I write some questions that I ask myself about the 50,000 Plan and that are important for the future management of this public park.
It is true that several tenders have been launched to build simultaneously on land in various cities. But the third sector, social developers and cooperatives, have not participated. If the only operators that have been providing affordable rental housing until now could not make the numbers work, wouldn't it be appropriate to analyze how to strengthen these operators with more aid and funding, and by better valuing their proven solvency in social management? Before helping individuals, it would make sense to incentivize non-profit organizations that can serve more residents.
Regarding acquisitions from InmoCaixa and other large holders, it is surprising that parliamentary groups do not carry out an economic follow-up of their impact. How many of these acquired apartments were occupied and how many were empty, for new families? How are the rental incomes from these households going? Is the acquisition at the agreed prices viable according to the rents that the public sector is collecting? Are there any that have remained without tenants? Is there demand for all of them? Has it been possible to buy apartments in the more affluent neighborhoods to ensure social mix? These data would help a great deal in understanding whether the public acquisition policy made sense or not, and would allow for the evaluation of the impact of the public money invested.
How much public land is still without cranes? Now, the urban planning competitions to design how the new neighborhoods for 214,000 new-build apartments should be have been tendered (they haven't even been resolved yet). And the parliamentary groups, do they have nothing to say about it? Do all the locations seem fine to them? Does it make sense to generate new growth while the Generalitat still has public land in El Prat, Montcada, Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Figueres, L'Escala, Llers, Martorell... that remains unbuilt?
The flexibility of the plans will help to make them a reality, but a minimum contrast between the pursued objectives and the obtained results is necessary.
