Housing shortage is the main and most pressing problem in Spain. Any ambitious initiative that serves to advance the debate and arrive at useful policies on this issue should be welcomed. This is the main value of the Municipalities bill presented to the Parliament of Catalonia. In essence, it is proposed that in areas declared to be in tension in the residential market, municipalities can, with conditions, limit the purchase of apartments or residential properties, with the aim of avoiding speculation. The proposal is inspired by a recent legal study commissioned by an official body in Barcelona which defends the constitutional obligation to limit, at state, regional and municipal levels, the acquisition of apartments. This would be an urgent and exceptional measure, limited in time and limited to certain requirements: for example, a house could be purchased only so that it becomes the buyer’s habitual residence for at least five years.
Precisely because of the extreme relevance of the right to housing and its weight in the persistence of inequalities, public authorities and society must be very cautious and rigorous in this debate. Converting a concept like “real estate speculation” into a legal definition with legal status is problematic. Not all real estate investments are speculative. Combining the essential responses to Spain’s serious housing problem with respect for property rights and private economic initiative has sufficient depth so that this debate does not become, with a certain political frivolity, the central issue of the support of its promoters or groups such as the ERC and the CUP for the Budgets of Catalonia and Barcelona. Availability for debate, everything, but also realism everything, underlined yesterday in Parliament president Salvador Illa.
Rigor in proposals must be the norm when what is at stake is social cohesion itself. Spain is one of the European Union countries where GDP has grown the most per capita over the last half century. But this has not translated into an equivalent reduction in inequality, which shows clear signs of chronicity. This is largely due to this housing shortage, which in the last six years has gone from an integration factor to a major social emergency for the most vulnerable families. Purchase and especially rental prices significantly exceed the wage income of modest households, which particularly affects young people. We welcome the excitement of political debate in a task as urgent as ending inequality that effectively violates the constitutional right of all citizens to enjoy decent and adequate housing.
