CADIZ – The municipality of Cádiz wants to protect itself against the upsurge of tourist apartments. Other Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Palma (Mallorca) or Madrid are already doing this. The moratorium came into effect on Thursday.
Permissions for the conversion of residential houses for tourist use will be suspended for one year.
This way, Cádiz City Council plans to buy time until the General Urban Plan (PGOU) amendment comes into force. Authorities approved the amendment in November. According to the municipality, these changes are aimed at preventing excessive tourist use of housing in residential areas.
The main measure of the moratorium is the prohibition of more houses for tourism purposes (VFT) in the city’s historic centre. In addition, it includes the restriction of hotels on fincas (farms) classified as residential land; with the exception of the hotels classified in levels 0 and 1 by the PGOU.
Furthermore, for the urban area outside the walled city, the new regulation will allow conversion of any property into a hotel or tourist apartments. However, new VFTs can only be implemented on the ground, first and second floors of buildings.
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Cádiz ‘at the forefront of quality tourism’
According to Diario de Cádiz, the Councilor for Urban Planning, Martín Vila, stressed it in a statement as “an important step”. It also concerns “the first measure of this design in the whole of Andalucia”. In this way, Cádiz is “at the forefront of the challenge to protect and defend the right to the city and quality tourism.”
