Barcelona City Council waives fines for developers who breached the 30% reserve

BarcelonaBarcelona will never collect the multi-million euro fines it planned to impose on property developers who had breached the regulations of the 30% reservation of social housing. According to the ARA, in September 2023 – three months after the formation of Jaume Collboni's government – the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation (IMHAB) archived the five sanctioning files that had already been initiated and that provided for fines ranging from 400 to 100 euros. It also archived the rest of the files that were open but in more initial stages.

The PSC executive admits that the files lapsed. Thus, the promoters who the inspection services had detected during 2022 were pardoned, avoiding the modification of the General Metropolitan Plan (PGM), which since December 2018 requires new promotions or large rehabilitations to reserve 30% of the apartments for affordable housing. A decision that municipal sources argue for two reasons: the "legal doubts" about the outcome of the litigation that could come after the sanctions and the will of the Collboni government to modify a rule that had been approved in the plenary session with the votes of Barcelona en Comú, PSC, ERC and Junts.

In the case of the five most advanced files, they were five blocks of flats in the Eixample district that were being renovated from top to bottom but avoiding the obligation to reserve 30% of the flats for protected housing. In some cases, because a building permit had not been requested at all. And in others, because to hide the fact that it was a large renovation and to circumvent the affordable housing quota, different permits had been processed for each flat instead of a general one for the entire building.

Dozens of affordable homes lost

In total, the five files – which had already received objections from the developers – provided for sanctions that, added together, were close to 3 million euros. If the fine had been confirmed, it could have been substantially reduced – by 80% – if they had given up the affordable housing quota that corresponded to them. A path that, for example, had already been followed by two other developers in 2022. In that case, they ended up providing five flats in two blocks on Consell de Cent and Lepant streets to avoid the sanction for having breached the 30% reserve.

If they had followed the same path, the five developments now facing multi-million-euro fines – on Aragó, Comte Borrell, Aribau, Muntaner and Castillejos streets – would have had to add 25 flats to the city's affordable housing stock. In addition, the developers risked not being able to participate in social housing developments for a maximum of three years, since the previous municipal government had raised the possibility of appealing to the housing law that establishes this type of penalty in cases of very serious irregularities. However, the municipal government decided to let these files expire – which expired between June and August 2023 – and also ruled out reopening them later despite still having room to do so.

In addition to the five most advanced files that already had a proposed sanction established, six other files that were in more initial stages have also been dropped, but in which the inspection services had also warned of non-compliance with the 30% reserve. In this case, it involves six developments – in the streets Marina, Lepant, Arizala, Granada del Penedès and Lleida and in the Alió passage – which in total add up to 83 homes and which, therefore, were likely to have to provide 25 more affordable apartments to the city. Nor have new inspections been carried out that have opened new files to other promoters that may have since then breached the 30%.

As for the other six files of the 17 initiated by the government of Ada Colau For breaches of the 30% reserve, two are the aforementioned ones from Consell de Cent and Lepant that were brought to comply with the protected housing quota. The other four had already been archived previously. But in this case, because it was finally ruled out that the measure was being breached.

The legal doubts

Municipal sources explain that they decided to "archive" the files in the face of "legal uncertainties" about how they could end up if they led to an administrative dispute. Uncertainties that the same sources support in a report commissioned to the legal services that, despite the requests of the ARA, do not provide. Nor do they give details about what these legal doubts are that are recorded.

The background of the decision is also the commitment of the Collboni government to modify the 30% rule. "Since the possible modification of the measure that enabled the possibility of sanctioning the non-compliance of the 30% qualification was known, for reasons of prudence, coherence and efficiency, it was decided not to open these files again pending the approval of the new regulations," point out the same sources.

In fact, in recent days the municipal government has resumed talks with some groups to modify the regulations in accordance with the report they commissioned from the president of the Metropolitan Housing Observatory, Carme Trilla. After refusing to protect the 30% reserve – as requested by the comuns to process the budgets – Collboni's executive has accelerated contacts with the parties to try to unblock the reform of a regulation that, with the data in hand, has not yielded the expected results.

This very Sunday, in an interview on The Country Collboni stressed that only 26 of the 2,000 flats expected have been built so far. Another 130 are underway. "If a public policy does not work, because it does not generate public or private housing, it must be changed," he argued. Among the changes he proposes, 30% of protected housing should not be built in the same building that is being renovated, but rather that housing from different developments can be grouped together in a whole building in the same neighbourhood. Collboni has not given any clues about the timetable, but sources familiar with the conversations suggest that the 30% reform could be taken to the Urban Planning Commission in March.