Barcelona
mayor defends ban on tourist flats saying ‘drastic’ action needed to cut
housing costs
Jaume
Collboni determined to follow through with plan that he says will return 10,000
properties to city’s residents
Ashifa
Kassam in Barcelona
Tue 19 Nov
2024 05.00 GMT
The decision
made headlines around the world, sparking surprise and threats of billion-euro
lawsuits. But months after officials in Barcelona announced plans to rid the
city of tourist flats by late 2028, the city’s mayor has described it as a
“drastic” but sorely needed move to rein in the surging cost of housing.
“It’s very
drastic but it has to be because the situation is very, very difficult,” Jaume
Collboni said in one of his first interviews with international media since the
June announcement. “In Barcelona, like other big European cities, the number
one problem we have is housing.”
The past 10
years have seen rental prices in the city soar by 68% while the cost of buying
a house has climbed 38%. As some residents complained of being priced out of
the city, Collboni began eyeing up the 10,101 licences the city had handed out
allowing accommodation to be rented to tourists through platforms such as
Airbnb.
What the
Socialists’ party mayor saw was a relatively swift way to bolster the city’s
stock of residential homes while also curtailing some of the 32 million
tourists who descend on the city of 1.7 million annually.
“Under the
model of mass tourism that has colonised the city centre, we’ve seen two things
fundamentally harmed: the right of access to housing, because housing is used
for economic activity, and coexistence among neighbours, particularly in areas
that have more tourist apartments,” said Collboni.
The city had
long sought to grapple with this, setting out limits on the number of tourist
flats. “After years, we’ve come to the conclusion that doing things halfway
doesn’t work,” said Collboni. “It’s very difficult to manage and to make sure
there are no illegal rentals. It’s much more simple and more clear to say that
there will be no more tourist flats in Barcelona.”
While some
have criticised the years it will take for the measure to come into effect,
Collboni traced the 2028 timeline to regional legislation that last year
limited tourist flat licences to five years in areas with scant access to
housing. It was in this clause that officials in Barcelona saw their chance: in
2028, when the current crop of licences expire in Barcelona, their plan is
simply not to renew any of them.
The idea,
however, comes with substantial limitations. Collboni’s mandate as mayor ends
in 2027, leaving the plan vulnerable to being scrapped if elections yield a
change in municipal government. The regional legislation also allows for owners
to request a one-time extension of up to five years if they are able to prove
that they’ve invested significantly in the property, though Collboni argued
that such cases would make up a “minor part” of the licences in Barcelona.
Instead his
hope is that the plan will result in more than 10,000 properties returned to
the residential market, where recently introduced rent caps and a pending
national registry aimed at curbing short-term rentals would ideally keep them
from becoming luxury flats or monthly rentals. The city’s team of about 30
inspectors – who officials say detect more than 300 illegal tourist flats a
month – is set to be bolstered by 10 more positions in the coming months and
will continue to operate at full force after 2028 to crack down on any illegal
rentals that might spring up.
The
announcement in June caught many in the city by surprise. “We didn’t think he
was so radical,” said Jaume Artigues of the Eixample Dreta Neighbours
Association, which represents a neighbourhood that is home to approximately 17%
of the city’s legal tourist flats – about 1,655 of them weave through the
central neighbourhood known for its modernist architecture. “I think it is a
very, very brave measure because it’s going to be a tough legal battle against
the economic interests of this sector.”
But Artigues
worried about the drawn-out timeline, describing it as an uncertain gamble in a
city where access to housing was already an emergency. The sentiment was echoed
by Albert Freixa, from the Housing Syndicate of Eixample. “You can’t promise
something for 2028, when there’s an election and you don’t even know if you’re
going to be mayor,” said Freixa.
In
September, the organisation Apartur, which represents management companies and
the owners of 85% of the legal tourist flats in the province of Barcelona,
announced plans to sue for compensation over lost revenues and investment.
Describing the city’s plan as “covert forced expropriation,” the organisation
mused that the demands could run as high as €3bn (£2.5bn).
The
country’s constitutional court is also due to weigh in on the plan. In February
it agreed to hear a legal challenge, lodged by the conservative People’s party,
that argued the regional legislation had, among other issues, overstepped its
boundaries when it comes to setting out how private property could be used.
Collboni
likened the argument to someone trying to launch a four-table restaurant in
their home. “Nobody would do that. Because you have to meet hygiene standards,
you have to pay taxes, you have to have regularised staff to work there,” he
said. “We say no, you can’t do whatever you want with your property. An
apartment is to be lived in; it is not a business.”
When
contacted by the Guardian, Airbnb – believed to facilitate the rental of most
tourist flats in the city – did not comment directly on the Barcelona plan.
Instead it
called for the city to rethink its approach to short-term rentals, arguing that
the city’s housing and overtourism challenges have not eased even as the
municipality has sought to clamp down on tourist flats. Citing government data
suggesting that vacant homes significantly outnumber short-term rentals in the
city, it argued that addressing this problem would be more likely to increase
the supply of affordable housing.
The showdown
comes as tensions over tourism in Barcelona continue to run high. The simmering
anger of some burst into public view this summer after a handful of protesters
bearing water guns squirted water at tourists, while others wielded signs
reading “Tourists go home” and “You are not welcome.”
What emerged
was not a reflection of how the majority of residents feel, said Collboni. “But
it’s true that there is an uneasiness in the city over this feeling that we’re
losing parts of the city,” he said, pointing to La Rambla, the tourist-clogged,
souvenir shop-lined boulevard as an example of an area that some residents
lament has been swallowed up by mass tourism.
“Tourism has
to be limited to what the city can actually absorb,” said Collboni. “We cannot
grow indefinitely at the expense of those who live in the city.”
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