The municipality of Barcelona will no longer issue local accommodation licenses or renew existing ones, which will put an end to the sale of apartments to tourists at the end of 2028, the city’s mayor announced this Friday.
There are currently 10,101 officially registered housing units in Barcelona, and one of the goals of this measure is to bring them into the housing market, both for rent and for sale, said Jaume Colboni.
According to the Socialist mayor, rentals in Barcelona have increased by 68% and sales by 38% over the past ten years.
Colboni said it is therefore necessary to increase supply and continue measures to regulate rental prices “so that prices don’t rise as much or start to fall and people don’t have to leave the city.”
For the same purpose, the mayor, speaking at a press conference, also announced a relaxation of rules regarding the construction and renovation of houses.
Regarding local accommodation, the municipality will apply a new law from the regional government of Catalonia (in north-eastern Spain), which stipulates that licenses for this type of residential accommodation will have a validity period of five years, after which they may or may not be granted. be resumed.
In this context, the current licenses will expire in November 2028 and, as Colboni said today, will not be renewed.
The goal, he said, is for Barcelona to “completely cease the activity of tourist apartments and to have 10,000 houses on the rental or sale market that will house Barcelona residents on a permanent basis.”
The municipality believes that the current owners of local tourist accommodation facilities will not be entitled to compensation, since the regional government law defined a five-year period before the cancellation of licenses as compensation to the owners.
With this announcement of local accommodation – apartments and houses designed to accommodate tourists – Barcelona joins other cities, such as New York in the United States, that have introduced similar measures.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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