Flats against the housing crisis will not arrive for five years

Palm4,500 homes intended for residents only in Palma and a similar figure in the rest of the Balearic Islands. These are the forecasts of the Palma City Council and the Government to address the housing emergency suffered by citizens. These measures derive mainly from the legislation promoted by Prohens, based on the promotion of strategic residential projects. This is a figure that the sector considers reasonable, but with a key clarification: the majority of these homes will not be built for another five years.

The complexity of accelerating urban planning procedures, despite the approved administrative simplification, as well as the concern of some developers about the lack of water in Palma, mean that the statement by a high-ranking popular official – "there must be cranes before the elections" – is ruled out. As ARA Balears has learned, some developers want to ensure that, when they submit their projects, water availability is guaranteed. However, according to the reports of the General Plan of Palma, this is not met in all cases.

The rulers are under enormous pressure from a citizenry that sees access to housing becoming increasingly difficult, and that is why they want massive actions, with large-scale developments, which, moreover, will benefit from 45% higher buildability than initially planned in the General Plan. Despite criticism for the saturation this will cause and for the lack of guarantee of water availability in all cases, Cort and Govern have pushed hard to accelerate the large developments, which have names and surnames: Son Ximelis, Cas Pastors, Son Güells, Son Puigdorfila and Son Cladera Nord.

The developers admit that “the processing has been greatly reduced, which in a developable area could take up to 15 years”. “Now we are talking about five. These times cannot be reduced further, because they are large transformations and cannot be done overnight”, explains the president of the developers, Óscar Carreras.

The strategic residential projects total “about 4,000 new homes, although this is an estimate, because the projects still have to be submitted by the developers, and this figure may vary”, indicate sources from the Urban Planning department of the Palma City Council. To this figure, the 500 homes of Son Bordoy must be added.

In this way, it is planned to make 4,500 apartments available to citizens. In the case of strategic residential projects, they must allocate 50% to protected or price-limited housing. A figure that will allow more than 2,000 apartments to be put on the market at an accessible price. “These are very significant figures and demonstrate important legislative work, but we come from a particularly cumbersome situation in the regulatory field, and a lack of action in housing matters. Therefore, the great results still seem distant”, admits the Director General of Housing of the Govern, José Francisco Reynés.

“In previous legislatures, the reality of the housing crisis had not been acknowledged, and no action was taken. The results are not automatic, but will gradually materialize. But we are already seeing that the fruits are from the measures that have allowed us to make better use of existing buildings”, continues the general director. Reynés refers to the Law on urgent measures in housing matters (2024), which totals more than 2,000 new homes –or in process. These actions include the conversion of commercial premises into homes, with 372 units; the increase in building height, which has generated 140 new households; the division of existing homes, with 115 more units, and the utilization of old commercial premises, which adds 139 units.

Despite these advances, the bulk of future supply continues to depend on large-scale projects that are still in their initial phases and involve complex urban transformations. Furthermore, some developers have stated that the obligation to dedicate at least 50% to affordable housing or housing at limited prices makes business margins very tight. With the foreseeable price escalation due to the war, this situation could become complicated. “We are studying how we can intervene, at least in the case of public housing that will go out to tender”, points out Reynés. “It is important to ensure that tenders are not left vacant because the demand for affordable housing is enormous”, he adds.

Opposition criticism

The Government's regulations and the Palma City Council's actions to intensify land use to generate housing and alleviate the housing crisis have not been well received by the opposition. MÉS per Palma councilor Neus Truyol accuses the PP "of using the housing crisis to justify an urbanistic liberalization that favors large real estate interests." As she denounces, the measures promoted by the Executive and Cort "imply a very delicate intensification of urbanistic developments and available land," as they accelerate land consumption and can saturate areas of the city without prior studies on mobility, services, and facilities.

Along the same lines, the socialist spokesperson in the Parliament, Iago Negueruela, criticized that this process of greater utilization of developable land implies "turning housing into an asset for speculation," instead of defending it as a right of citizenship. Negueruela believes that legislative measures, such as the one regulating strategic residential projects – which allows for an increase of up to 45% in the number of homes that can be authorized compared to what is specified in the General Plan –, are an "urbanistic maneuver that only benefits developers' interests."

In any case, the administrative machinery continues and the owners of the land that will benefit from this greater development are making their move. In recent weeks, the statutes and operating bases of the compensation boards of Son Güells and Son Puigdorfila, two key areas of Palma's projected residential growth, have been approved. This situation confirms that the moment when the land becomes apartments is still far off. “Now an administrative process begins, then comes the urbanization and, finally, the construction, although it is true that processes can now be more simultaneous. But it is impossible for anything to materialize before five years,” confirms a Palma Urban Planning technician who requests anonymity.

In the opinion of the president of the developers, no matter how much it may seem right now that the apartments from the large operations are still a long way off, the change has been noticed: “The urbanization works in these areas will begin in 12 to a maximum of 18 months. But it must be taken into account that before they used to take three or four years,” he explains.