2023-07-10 05:32:32
The real estate crisis and the almost total paralysis of the new construction sector has made it easier for Burgos to reduce its empty homes by half in a decade. The construction fever of the real estate boom petered out. So much so that a surprise has returned, for being so close to the crisis generated by the pandemic, constructive effervescence. Even so, the capital has 7,000 homes locked up, according to the INE’s Population and Housing Census.
The map of empty houses in the capital is darker in districts five (G-2, G-3, Avenida de la Paz, and Reyes Católicos), in district nine (Gamonal and Capiscol) and in district three (San Pedro de la Fuente, Fuentecillas and Barriada San Juan Bautista). These are areas that had their real estate boom in the past: in the 60s and 70s Gamonal and Capiscol, at the beginning of the 21st century G-2 and G-3 and a decade ago around Fuentecillas. The first two are the most numerous zones.
According to energy consumption, homes with inputs of less than 10kw with 685 in the G-2 and G-3 area, 660 in the Gamonal and Capiscol area, and 632 in the Fuentecillas area. The map of empty properties is no stranger to the rest of the city’s neighborhoods. In the surroundings of the 600 closed properties are the area of Castellana, Cellophane and Huelgas, the neighborhoods of San Julián and El Crucero and the South Zone. With 562 is the area of San Lesmes and Calzadas, district two, and in Vadillos and Avenida del Cid there are 522 with a testimonial energy consumption. The area with fewer homes in this situation is the historic center.
From the perspective of the total number of properties, the one that proportionally has the most empty houses is the area of Gamonal and Capiscol. In district nine of the Burgos capital, 7.8% of the homes are empty. It is followed by district five with 7.5% of unused properties and Fuentecillas, San Pedro de la Fuente and Barriada San Juan Bautista with 7.2% of unused properties.
Another of the effects of the economic crisis observed in the 2021 Housing Census is the type of household ownership. The property is the majority, although the one that is fully paid, the one with a mortgage or the inherited is not broken down, but the one that grows the most in percentage terms is the rent. Thus, in the city 59,656 households live in their own home, 3.6% more than a decade ago. Regarding the rent, it is limited to 10,277 homes in Burgos, the figure is 9% higher than in 2011. Another type of tenure brings together 3,477 properties.
Critical situation
In front of the buildings without use for years in many cases, an access to the house that is complicated at times. “The situation is getting worse and worse, we are returning to cases of dation in lieu of non-payment of mortgages but, at the same time, rents are at impossible prices for families with limited resources and the administration does not have social housing to access the lawsuit giving rise to really painful cases with minors included”, explains Julia Braceras from the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, PAH, from Burgos.
During the last two months, the PAH has accompanied four families with problems in dealing with their mortgage in negotiations with financial institutions. The solution is to agree on a social rent because dation in payment does not solve the need for housing. “We are going back to the situation of 2008 with the rental market in an impossible situation because the prices are unaffordable for those with a minimum income,” he details. They consider that “the administration does not have a housing alternative to alleviate the increasingly serious problems of access to housing for both vulnerable people and the general population,” they explain.
For this reason, they remember that the administration must propose mechanisms to value empty houses, generally in the hands of large owners. That is why they propose to mobilize empty housing favoring affordable prices for the population that cannot comply with the constitutional right of decent housing. «The administration and the Property Chamber should be working on solutions to this problem, real and effective programs to rehabilitate homes and give owners legal coverage and security so that they rent and not create anti-squatter offices that are useless because here it is testimonial,” they point out.
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