“Tourist houses in residential buildings are only allowed on the first floor or ground floor”. That is the last message from Madrid townhall for owners of tourist apartments in the Spanish capital.
This is an amendment to Madrid’s 1997 General Plan for Urban Development, approved by the regional government on Thursday. In practice, this means thousands of apartments currently used for tourist rental in the capital will have to cease operations.
According to data from the Madrid City Council, there were about 14,000 tourist apartments in the capital before the pandemic. “The special housing plan did not regulate the activity of tourist flats, only that of tourist apartments; that is, buildings entirely destined for tourist rental,” explains Mariano Fuentes of Madrid City Planning.
In El Confidencial, Fuentes explains the purpose of this change in the urban regulation is to better control this type of activity. The situation, it would seem, is now completely out of control.
More than half the tourist apartments will disappear
In practice, this limitation means more than half of current tourist housing will disappear, Fuentes said. In this regard, he points out that 98% of apartments rented out to tourists in the capital are illegal. The vast majority do not have a permit from the municipality. An important reason for this is that tourist housing must have independent access. And in many cases this cannot be met.
