Three months after the entry into force of the new decree of the Junta de Andalucía, which gives local authorities more powers to regulate holiday rentals, Malaga has started preparing its own regulations.
Like many tourist cities in Spain, it´s struggling with an unbridled growth of holiday homes and apartments for tourist rental. This growth is partly good for the local economy. However, it does threaten the quality of housing in the city and the quality of life of its residents. In order to make a proposal for limiting this rental, the city council has engaged a consultancy from Seville. Tourist rentals will be limited depending on their distribution per city zone.
The consultancy must make a thorough analysis of the impact of holiday rentals on the housing market and the quality of life in the city. This analysis will then form the basis for new regulations that regulate sprawl per city district based on specific parameters.
City divided into three zones
The proposed regulations will divide Malaga into three different zones depending on the number of holiday homes. Each zone will have its own restrictions on new holiday rentals. These will range from no restrictions to strict limits on where and how these properties can be listed. This approach aims to restore the balance between residential use and holiday rentals. This must guarantee the quality of life for permanent residents. The municipality has already announced that despite this start, it may take months before the new rules come into effect. There are quite a few bureaucratic processes involved.
Madrid
Last month, the municipality of Madrid announced that it would no longer issue permits for tourist rentals until the new city plan has been approved. The city council, led by Mayor Martínez-Almeida, also wants to impose heavier fines for violating the rules. On Monday, the newspaper El Mundo wrote that Madrid has no fewer than 16,000 irregular holiday homes. That´s an increase of 23% compared to last year.
Canary Islands
The government of the Canary Islands has introduced a bill that will regulate holiday rentals. However, according to Canarias Ahora, this announcement has created a ‘pull effect’ rather than slowing down the sector. The announcement has led to a 40% increase in the average number of daily registrations of new properties for tourism use. Since the presentation of the ‘Law on the Sustainable Management of the Tourist Use of Housing’, the average number of applications for licenses per day has increased from 50 to 70. In total, the autonomous community currently has 56,173 tourist apartments. In some areas, the current housing market, including holiday rentals, is already driving permanent residents to insecure and poor-quality housing, as El Día writes here about Tenerife.
Spanish government
The Spanish government is also looking for a good way to regulate tourist rentals based on current EU guidelines. Measures in this regard fell outside the new Housing Act that came into effect last year because the PSOE did not want to get involved at the time. The starting point of the new regulation is the right to housing as the basis of the welfare state. One step has already been taken: the abolition of the Golden Visa scheme. The EU directives also aim to increase transparency in the tourist rental market, including by establishing a register of tourist accommodation owners.
Also read: Spain second largest tourist rental market in the EU