Together breaks off negotiations with Collboni over 30% and overturns its flagship measure.

BarcelonaThis is it. Together for Barcelona officially announced this Wednesday morning that it is leaving the negotiating table to modify the 30% reserve for social housing in the Catalan capital. At a press conference, the group's leader on the city council, Jordi Martí Galbis, explained that it had been impossible to reach an agreement with Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni, whom he accused of not wanting to reach an agreement. Thus, unless there is a last-minute change of script, the mayor will not be able to fulfill what was his main campaign promise. His flagship measure.

Changing this measure, promoted in 2018 by Ada Colau's government and which requires developers to reserve 30% for social housing when they undertake new construction or renovate entire buildings in stressed areas of Barcelona, ​​had become Collboni's main objective during this term. The executive has been warning for two years that the regulations have not worked because they have not generated the expected social housing, and that is why they had made modifying them their main objective of the mandate.

In a press conference, Martí explained that the municipal government has not accepted the proposals that Junts had put forward to accompany this 30% modification, such as reducing the property tax by 4%. As he explained, Collboni's executive proposed reducing the property tax by a maximum of 2% and also offsetting it with an increase in the city's tourist tax. The Junts councilor regretted that the mayor had acted with "arrogance" and had not "rolled up his sleeves" to reach an agreement, and accused him of preferring that there be no pact driven by electoral interests.

Martí admitted that they were not adverse to the content of the 30% modification proposal on the table, which in practice diluted the impact in the case of large building renovations and limited the obligation to reserve protected housing in some buildings larger than 1,500 square meters. However, for Junts, all this only made sense if the change was accompanied by a whole package of housing measures that included a reduction in the property tax (IBI), a redefinition of the preemption and redemption ordinance, the creation of a new package of aid for rental and first-time home purchases, and pressure on Sareb to mobilize its assets in the city. Finally, it was on taxation that the agreement faltered.

Although he did not rule out reopening negotiations if Collboni agreed to review his position on the property tax (IBI), Martí admitted that he does not believe it is possible and, therefore, has considered the matter closed during this term. After lamenting that the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) prevented an agreement that "was possible," Martí pledged to include the 30% reform in Junts' electoral platform for the next term.

The employers' push

Thus, one of the major debates of the Barcelona City Council's term comes to an end. As explained this diaryIn the last week, the possibility of the PSC and Junts reaching an agreement had receded, and pessimism was beginning to grow within the municipal government. Sources within Junts admitted a few days ago that everything happening in Madrid—with corruption cases affecting the closest enemy of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez—made photographing themselves with the Socialists closing a deal more difficult.

This situation led the fourth deputy mayor of the City Council, Jordi Valls, to issue a public warning to Junts, opening the door for the first time to shelving the 30% reform until the next term if an agreement was not reached before the summer. An ultimatum that did not go down well within Junts, who on Wednesday confirmed the failure of the talks and reproached Collboni's executive for wanting to blame them for a disagreement that, they pointed out, is the government's fault.

The regulatory change was also a persistent demand from employers—led by Fomento—and the real estate sector, which had even helped facilitate talks between the PSC and Junts groups at City Hall. This Wednesday, Martí admitted that before holding the press conference, he had contacted representatives of these sectors to inform them of the failure of the negotiations and give them his version of the outcome of the 30% reform.

The latest proposal

With the failure of the talks between the PSC and Junts, the last one remains on paper proposal that the municipal government had sent to the groups and which, as ARA advanced, substantially reduces the housing stock that could be affected by the measure. The last document exchanged by the groups stipulated that the regulation would only affect major renovations of buildings larger than 1,500 m2—until now, those larger than 600 m2—and not all of them.

Within buildings larger than 1,500 m2, only those major renovations that involve a change of use (from offices to housing, for example) of more than 600 m2 and those buildings with horizontal ownership—with a single owner—that make a single owner—that make a single owner—owner—would be required to reserve protected housing, unless they have been renovated in the last ten years. This is, in fact, a route that some vertical properties have used so far to avoid the 30% obligation. To pretend it wasn't a major renovation of the entire building, but rather different owners renovating their apartment, they sold some of the apartments on the property.