Less bureaucracy, more housing

We suffer from an excess of bureaucracy, especially now that almost everything has to be self-managed, impersonally and virtually, from the computer and the smartphone. But bureaucracy, an instrument of power, is as old as the Egyptian empire, as explained by Lewis Mumford in the book The Myth of the Machine. Like the neoliberal ideology of capitalism, its essence is to impose on us that there are no other possible worlds than that of the existing rules, applications, and contractual conditions.The difficulties in having papers or crossing certain borders, days full of kafkaesque dealings with large energy and communication companies, or regrettable situations, like when you go to the post office to collect a package for someone who is not there and they demand their authorization, even from the grave, are an example of this.Also the quality of urban life is marked by regulations and watched over by restrictive officials. Streets and public spaces, homes and school classrooms, everything is previously defined by laws, ordinances, modules and subsidy conditions, written by jurists who have no knowledge of the qualities of spaces, of people's real lives, or of what the culture of care is. Too many bureaucrats do not leave their country, because otherwise they would see the diversity of rules in each city and society, and that it is healthy to evolve them.

In principle, the excess of regulation is to prevent speculation or abuses. But from this arise miseries like the meager sizes of our balconies, a disgrace against nature when compared to countries like France or Holland, where large overhangs and terraces are permitted. The experience of the pandemic demonstrated the inadequacy of houses without balconies or terraces that, according to regulations, cannot be more than 80 centimeters wide, as if having more space harmed someone. Only the Basque Country has incorporated, since 2023, that terraces are mandatory and must be at least 4 square meters.And it is that the quality of architecture and public spaces has a lot to do with the laws and urbanistic plans that have previously defined them. One can have the best intentions for new housing, but if the plot is where it has been decided that there should be blocks or towers and not terraced houses, and that there should be no neighborhood around, there is no way to achieve continuity with the urban fabric. We can repeat James Carville's 1992 phrase: “It's the urbanism, stupid.”Precisely, now the Generalitat government announces the draft law for the simplification of procedures in the urban planning and environmental field, which is open for public consultation until September 30. In parallel, the laws will be unified into a single text that overcomes the current low-quality hyperregulation and administrative fragmentation, thus avoiding the labyrinth of contradictions and overlaps. It is inadmissible that it takes almost a year on average to obtain a building permit. The new law aims for it to be granted in one month; and for urban planning to be resolved in six or eight months instead of taking two years.

To be able to build the 50,000 homes in Catalonia, promised by Salvador Illa, is a vital condition, since one of the obstacles to any housing policy is the slowness of the procedures. This may imply that projects and plans do not go through the examination of municipal technicians, but rather through Certification Entities of the Urbanistic Scope, the ECAU; and these private entities have raised certain alarms. Procedures must be streamlined, but there can be no fall into disguised deregulation, nor into un-audited private management. Therefore, the leading role of professional associations in technical and urbanistic review must be demanded.It is good news that part of the bureaucracy is streamlined and made more efficient in matters of housing, urban planning, and the environment, but this should not mean reducing citizen participation, nor the guarantees that projects tend towards the common good, nor the possibilities for innovation: today Antoni Gaudí could not do his work, nor can we reproduce the French housing rehabilitation projects of Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. A change of mentality is needed, moving from the rigidity and defensive attitude of bureaucrats to a public administration that is proactive and transparent, with civil servants open to experimentation and pilot projects; seeking general interests and not the satisfaction of their exercise of power; and incorporating mechanisms for dialogue and adaptability to each situation and context.