Palma wants to reduce or eliminate subsidized housing in new urban developments

PalmThe Palma City Council plenary session approved an initiative on Tuesday that opens the door to reducing or even eliminating the quota for subsidized housing in specific urban developments. The proposal, supported by the PP and Vox parties and rejected by the left, is included in the request to reform the Capital City Law that the City Council intends to submit to the Balearic Parliament. The municipal government argues that the city needs "an updated and fair system," while the opposition warns that the change could have a significant impact on access to housing. The approved measure allows the Palma plenary session to request the Balearic Government to modify urban planning regulations to establish, in certain projects, a lower percentage of subsidized housing than the general requirement, or to eliminate it altogether. The Finance Councillor, Mercedes Celeste, emphasized that "the overall public housing quota will never be touched," but justified that in "technically justified" cases, the City Council must have the capacity to relax the requirements. The opposition, however, has accused the municipal government of "custom-designed urban planning" and of favoring private interests. PSOE spokesperson Xisco Ducrós asserted that the initiative "allows for the reduction or elimination of subsidized and affordable housing," calling it a "fraud" and a "grave error." Lucía Muñoz of Unides Podemos warned that reserving public housing is "the main tool" to curb the housing crisis, while Neus Truyol, councilor for MÉS per Palma, denounced it as "a betrayal of the residents." The PP and Vox defended the initiative, accusing the left of "lying" and of never having promoted improvements to the Capital City Law. Vox spokesperson Fulgencio Coll blamed the previous municipal government for the housing shortage and celebrated that Cort "gains autonomy" to manage urban planning exceptions.

Meanwhile, the reform also calls for doubling the minimum contribution from other levels of government to Palma to 60 million euros, another point that has generated political tensions, but which has been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding subsidized housing.