© PIXABAY
– This would put 10,000 homes back on the rental or sale market.
The number one destination for foreign visitors to Spain has made a strong decision. Indeed, the city of Barcelonawhich receives millions of tourists per year, wants to put an end to rental of tourist apartments by 2029, as reported by BFM TV. The reason ? Facilitate access to housing for residents, according to the mayor of the Catalan city. During a press conference, Jaume Collboni explained that Parliament had authorized the city to “do not renew licenses for tourist apartments”. This will allow “put 10,000 homes back on the rental or sale market”he added.
According to the municipality, the licenses for tourist apartments, renewed for five years in November, will expire in November 2028. In theory from the following year, “tourist apartments as we see them today will disappear from the city of Barcelona”, affirmed the socialist mayor. Thus, to achieve its goals, the city wants to use a decree approved last year by the Parliament of Catalonia, which regulates the number of housing units equipped a tourist use license in cities where real estate pressure is greatest.
The rest under this advertisement
The rest under this advertisement
Legislative 2024: two months before the Olympics, chronicle of a disaster predicted for tourism?
More than 10,000 accommodations have a license as tourist apartments
“The city cannot allow such a high number of apartments to be used for tourist activity”while “the difficulty of accessing housing and the negative effects of tourist overcrowding are obvious”, insists, in a press release, the municipal council. The councilor recalled that rents in Barcelona have increased by 68% over the last ten years. Currently, 10,101 housing units have a license as a tourist apartment.
Under the mandate of former mayor Ada Colau, the city suspended the issuance of new licenses to regulate the tourist expansion of the Catalan capital. This has nevertheless not prevented the effects of overtourism, particularly since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. Gatherings were then formed in high places of Spanish tourism with the slogan: “Enough ! Let’s put limits on tourism!”
