2023-09-01 12:40:29
Back from the summer break, we will talk again about the housing needs in Spain and the different formulas to increase the offer as the main axis of the matter.
Many theories, many debates, many forums, many politicians, a lot of everything but few short-term solutions, much less if we focus on the construction of subsidized housing. As a representative figure of the real estate sector rightly says: “The priority in Spain is not a Housing Law but to build housing urgently.”
Also taking into account that public administrations do not have, nor should they have, sufficient economic muscle to solve the need for housing on their own. The production of housing can only be achieved by counting on the private initiative in a profoundly collaborative climate since the objectives are shared. And is this possible?
Well, it is true that the economic situation is not good; the rise in interest rates, inflation, the price of materials or the absence of specialized labor are some of the barriers to overcome. And if to this panorama we add different interventionist measures launched from the public spheres, such as the requirement to qualify 30% of VPO in all new developments in their construction phase, then the problem worsens.
It worsens because this measure, surely well-intentioned, has bolted the cruising speed that subsidized housing in Barcelona needed for the next 18 months, simply because the numbers do not come out to start the building process as demonstrated by the College of Architects when reporting the decrease of 69.11% in housing permits in Barcelona in the first quarter of the year. That is to say, it is not that the percentage of subsidized housing increases, but rather that housing of any kind is not built directly because the numbers do not come out.
That is why you have to pay close attention because often looking for the common good achieves the opposite effect to the desired one. And if excessive interventionism could be negative, it is no less true that inaction can also be harmful.
Let’s see. Protected housing is built based on criteria established in Decrees and Orders of the respective Ministries of each Autonomous Community, their characteristics and their maximum sale and rental prices are marked there, but a small problem occurs, that these modules are immutable to the economic situation to which I referred at the beginning of the article. In other words, they are what they are and, for example, in the Community of Madrid they have been like that since 2008.
Can you imagine paying for electricity, for gasoline or for bread, to lower it further to earth where the raw material has risen 72.8% in the last 15 years, the same price it had then? Well, for the construction of subsidized housing for sale or rent, that’s right.
This, which might seem correct, is once again a mistake, because it is not that subsidized housing is bought at the price of 2008, it is that directly Social housing is not built because it is not that it is not profitable, it is that the numbers do not come out directly for many dynamic tables in Excel one insists on doing.
And I give an example again. In El Cañaveral, the new neighborhood in the southeast of the capital, the average rental price is 13.13 euros/m2, well, the module for renting subsidized housing is 8.89 euros/m2. That is, for more expenses, services, storage rooms or garage spaces that you want to add, the numbers do not come out and the same happens with the sales module that is 1,940.48 euros/m2, that is, it gives you to buy the land , finish structure and little else, clearly unfeasible.
For this reason, it is essential that the Public Administrations not only trust private initiative to build subsidized housing, but that they have to support them with immediate actions, both in those regions where interventionism discourages investment, as Collboni has already admitted, or in those other where urgent events are needed by updating the subsidized housing module. IN Madrid they are aware and they have been working on it for many months and soon they will surely give us good news.
Let’s stop talking about subsidized housing please, let’s build subsidized housing and she will speak for all of us.
At the local level, through the various planning instruments that have been incorporating this figure when classifying residential land under that denomination and, at the state level, when it is implicitly recognized.
#problem #subsidized #housing #idealistanews