Barcelona promotes the Pla Viure to expand the stock of protected housing and guarantee access

Barcelona City Council is accelerating the rollout of Pla Viure, the municipal strategy designed to address the housing crisis and ensure that access to decent and affordable housing is no longer the primary concern for citizens. With the slogan "We prioritize housing," the plan positions this policy as one of the top priorities of its term and outlines the actions to be taken to guarantee and universalize the right to housing. The Pla Viure structures the municipal housing strategy around three cross-cutting areas of focus: universalizing the right to housing, rehabilitating and improving existing housing with sustainability and comfort criteria, and addressing vulnerability and the different life stages of the population. It also includes measures aimed at vulnerable groups such as young people and students, households (families and children), the elderly, people with disabilities or reduced mobility, and people experiencing loneliness or poverty. Universalizing the right to housing

To reverse the situation of difficulty in accessing housing, the first pillar of the Pla Viure (Living Plan) prioritizes ensuring that everyone can live in decent and affordable housing. To this end, this pillar establishes three main objectives: expanding the stock of subsidized housing, using all available resources to develop vacant lots and build public housing, and involving the entire public and private sectors in housing development.

Expand the public housing stock by adding 1,000 new subsidized homes each year

According to the municipal omnibus survey of December 2024, access to housing has become one of the main concerns of Barcelona residents—on par with insecurity—with 28.8% of citizens considering it the city's most serious problem. To reverse this situation, the City Council plans to deliver 1,000 subsidized housing units each year, with the goal of reaching 3,000 units delivered by 2027 and another 5,000 in various stages of construction.

67% of the city's social housing is built on municipal land, a proportion that reached 88% in 2023, confirming the key role of public land in the city's housing policy. Two examples that symbolize this commitment and reinforce the City Council's dedication are the Illa Glòries development, with a total of 238 homes, and Acer 10, with 234 homes—the two largest social housing developments in the city.

All means to activate vacant lots and build public housing

To achieve this goal, the city council has created the Department for the Promotion of Subsidized Housing (DPHP), which acts as a coordinating body between the Urban Planning, Heritage, and Housing departments. This allows for the reorganization of internal processes to streamline procedures and provide a more effective response to Barcelona's housing situation. The department will have an annual budget of €1.15 million in 2026, plus an additional €250,000 allocated for external contracting.

The new department stems from the Housing Land Acceleration Group (GRUASH), created to promote the development of municipal land and ensure a steady flow of new projects. The goal is to activate land for the construction of 10,000 homes starting in 2027.

Public-private collaboration to accelerate construction

The Living Plan emphasizes shared responsibility and the need to involve both the public and private sectors in the construction and management of affordable housing. One of the most significant projects in this area is HabitarB!, a collaboration agreement between the City Council and the Generalitat (Valencian Government) that allows for the transfer of 27 municipal plots of land to INCASÒL (the Catalan Land Institute), where 1,700 subsidized housing units are planned. In the first phase, surface rights have already been awarded for eleven plots, which will result in 594 subsidized housing units, and the first seven architectural projects selected through a public competition have been approved.

The city council has also signed a financing agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB), which will allow it to mobilize resources for the construction of social housing, and has just awarded the first open tender to private developers for the construction and management of 406 public housing units.

A city plan

The Pla Viure (Living Plan) aims to reverse a historical trend: between 2000 and 2023, only 20% of completed homes in the city were social housing. The goal is to double this proportion and bring Barcelona in line with other European capitals that have made housing a cornerstone of their public policies. The key to the plan will be the ability to maintain the pace of development and ensure that public land is mobilized as quickly as necessary. But for the first time, Barcelona has a comprehensive and sustained strategy to guarantee that everyone can live with dignity.