Barcelona will look for ways to combat speculative housing purchases

BarcelonaBarcelona City Council agreed this Friday to take a new approach in the fight to resolve the city's housing crisis. The plenary session approved, with votes from the PSC, ERC, and Barcelona en Comú, a motion from the latter calling on the municipal government to commit to developing "the necessary urban planning instruments" to limit speculative purchases in the city. The City Council is thus following in the footsteps of the President of the Generalitat (Catalan Government). Salvador IslaLast week, the Catalan government also opened the door to prohibiting speculative home purchases. Behind this shift is the report that urban planning law expert Pablo Feu prepared for the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB), in which he argued for the feasibility of limiting home purchases when they are not intended as the buyer's primary residence. This study has precipitated the debate in Catalan institutions, which are now open to implementing regulations that had not previously been considered. In fact, it was Janet Sanz, vice-president of the PEMB and leader of Barcelona en Comú in the city council, who brought the debate to the plenary session. Sanz denounced that one in three home purchases in the Catalan capital are made for speculative purposes and argued that it is necessary to follow the example of other cities like Amsterdam and limit this type of purchase. The councilor from Comuns has asserted that the City Council has the authority, through a special urban development plan, to implement the regulation independently without waiting for the Generalitat (Catalan government) or the State to regulate it. Although they voted in favor of the measure, both the PSC (Socialist Party of Catalonia) and ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia) expressed skepticism about the City Council's ability to pass the regulation alone. First Deputy Mayor Laia Bonet warned that the council cannot afford "improvisations or whims" and that any measure must be "legally very sound." Therefore, she stated that the council's technical staff will study the PEMB (Special Plan for the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona) report and rigorously evaluate it to determine how to implement it within the council. "The approach is clear: intervene in the market to change the rules of the game. We want a market dominated by small property owners, not speculators," she affirmed.

ERC councilor Eva Baró has been more critical, accusing the Comuns of "putting the cart before the horse" and arguing that the City Council lacks the authority to regulate speculative purchases on its own and that doing so requires the involvement of several administrations. "If only it were that simple," she said, expressing doubts about whether a special urban development plan could affect the ownership or intended use of the properties. "If the City Council could do it alone, they could have done it during the eight years they were in charge of Urban Planning," she retorted.

The budget negotiations

Despite initial reservations, the proposal has moved forward and keeps negotiations alive between the municipal government and Barcelona en Comú regarding the budget. This Thursday, Sanz had warned the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, that if he did not agree to regulate speculative housing purchases, he would not be able to count on his votes. For now, this Friday the mayor has also managed to provisionally approve the tax ordinances with the support of Comuns and ERC. This was the only positive point for the municipal government in a plenary session where, once again, the opposition inflicted several defeats. For example, an attempt by the PSC to approve an institutional declaration urging the Spanish government to raise taxes on non-EU citizens who buy property if it is not for personal use was rejected. A motion by Junts condemning the "partisan and propagandistic" use of institutional communication by Jaume Collboni's administration also passed. A "weakness" of the municipal government that the opposition groups had already pointed out before and during the debate on the state of the city. One after another, the opposition groups accused the mayor of giving a "triumphalist" speech about the city's situation and of lacking a "clear direction."