Badalona will be the first PP-governed municipality to ban tourist apartments

BarcelonaBadalona will be the first municipality with a PP mayor to ban tourist apartments. Xavier García Albiol's administration announced this Tuesday that it will bring a motion to the City Council to prohibit tourist accommodation in the city "between April and May." He stated that this measure is being adopted because other cities in the Barcelona metropolitan area are already taking similar steps. "Badalona cannot be left behind. It's a matter of common sense," Albiol argued. The mayor hopes this announcement will prevent the city from experiencing a flood of tourist apartment license applications if it becomes the only one in the area to allow them. In fact, in February 2024, the Badalona City Council already approved a moratorium halting the granting of tourist apartment licenses in the city. Now that this moratorium is expiring, Albiol announces that he will make the measure permanent before the summer.

Despite admitting that it's a measure far removed from the PP's position, Albiol defended it because "it's the best thing for Badalona." During the plenary session in which the measure was announced, government councilor Dani Gracia recalled that the PP in Badalona was already a "pioneer" in 2014 in prohibiting tourist apartments on the seafront, while in the rest of the city they are only permitted in single-unit buildings. Now, however, they will be banned throughout the entire city due to the prohibitions approved in the surrounding municipalities.

The debate arose from a motion presented in the municipal plenary session by the opposition groups (Guanyem, Comuns, ERC, and PSC) in conjunction with a citizens' platform opposed to the presence of tourist apartments in the city. Currently, the Generalitat's registry of tourist accommodation lists 223 apartments legally dedicated to this activity in Badalona, ​​although the residents' platform estimates that, based on what can be seen on vacation rental websites, there are more than a thousand.

Metropolitan pressure

The decision by Albiol's government comes after other surrounding municipalities have banned tourist apartments. The fact that Barcelona City Council has already announced it will eliminate all licenses by the end of 2028 has prompted other cities to take similar measures to avoid becoming havens for these types of establishments. In addition to the Catalan capital, other cities such as Sant Adrià de Besòs, Hospitalet de Llobregat, and Santa Coloma de Gramenet have opted to restrict tourist apartments. Despite Albiol's announcement, the opposition has warned of the risk that during the interim period between the end of the moratorium in February and the approval of the ban on tourist apartments, a loophole could open up, allowing many new licenses to slip through the net in the city.