Where will the 6,500 apartments to be built in Palma in the coming years come from? There are already three strategic projects in process.

PalmPalma is processing three Strategic Residential Projects (PRE) with more than 6,000 apartments that have taken advantage of the law that allows these initiatives to be expedited—the Law of Urgent Measures for Obtaining Land—as confirmed to ARA Baleares by the real estate developers' association Proinba. These projects benefit from a single procedure that combines all the steps that were previously handled sequentially—urban planning, land readjustment, and urbanization—reducing the timeframe from up to ten years to between 18 and 24 months. "Even so, these timeframes can no longer be shortened, and we cannot expect anything very soon. In any case, these buildings will be under construction much sooner than if we had processed them through the conventional channels," explains Proinba's president, Óscar Carreras. In addition to the three projects being processed as strategic, there are two others, also "very advanced," Carreras confirms. All of this paints a picture with approximately 11,000 new apartments, some 5,500 of which, as stipulated by the regulations, "will be protected or price-limited, a significant portion of which will be managed by Ibavi to serve those most urgently needing housing who meet the requirements," the president points out. To access the price-limited apartments, beneficiaries will have to prove a minimum of five years of residency in the Balearic Islands. Regarding the possibility of building apartments in transition zones (rural land), which the regulations also allow, the president of the developers' association believes that it is not possible in the short term, partly due to the uncertainty generated by the appeal before the Constitutional Court. "As an association, we opposed it. Urban and developable land must be exhausted first, and in this sense, municipalities can always choose this option," he said.

The housing situation is very complicated in the Balearic Islands, and developers admit that "a single measure won't solve the tremendous lack of available housing," laments Carreras. Even so, developers are convinced that 11,000 new apartments will help alleviate the current tension because demand exceeds all expectations. "In the case of resale properties, it's so exaggerated that they're already priced the same as new homes. There's such a housing shortage that people are willing to pay the same for a resale property as for a newly built apartment with the same features," says the president of the developers' association.

The appeal to the Constitutional Court

The law that authorizes these urgent actions (Law 4/2025) has reached the Constitutional Court through an appeal, admitted for review, filed by a group of 50 members of parliament from the Sumar-Més and Mixed (Podemos) parliamentary groups in Congress. The action, supported by social and environmental organizations, argues that the law violates legal certainty, environmental regulations, the protection of rural land, and municipal powers because it allows for rezoning and construction with little prior regulation. Those responsible for the appeal believe that the PRE (Special Plans for Urban Redevelopment) could jeopardize the transparency of urban planning and favor private developers instead of guaranteeing real affordable housing for residents. The arguments in favor of the PRE focus on their ability to expedite urban planning procedures and increase the housing supply in a context where demand far exceeds supply. The regulations allow for the release of urban and developable land that had been blocked for years and its allocation to developments that, in the government's words, "prioritize local residents," with the aim of mitigating the effects of rising prices and guaranteeing affordable housing. Furthermore, the law establishes that a minimum portion of the buildable area must be designated for subsidized housing, an improvement over previous regulations. However, the PRE (Regional Planning Schemes) have sparked significant criticism and controversy. Environmental and social groups have warned about the territorial and environmental impacts, cautioning that the regulations could facilitate uncontrolled urban sprawl and affect natural spaces and resources. Some municipalities, such as Manacor, have explicitly rejected the application of the PRE in their territory, arguing that they could increase density and buildable area beyond what is foreseen in current urban development plans and jeopardize the municipality's sustainable planning. The GOB (Balearic Ornithological Group) described the political agreement between the Government and Vox, which allowed this accelerating legislation to be pushed through, as an "urban and demographic time bomb," and points out that the rezoning of rural land could alter the territorial and ecological sustainability of the Archipelago. In this regard, the president of the developers, Oscar Carreras, told ARA Baleares that "we must respond to the population that has arrived in recent years (more than 100,000 people)." "If this trend doesn't change, the Islands as we know them will undergo very significant territorial changes," he says.