Valencia joins the list of municipalities that promise to put a stop to mass tourism and holiday apartments

Valencia City Council approves today in plenary penultimate municipal moratorium in Spanish cities to put a stop to the unstoppable rise of tourist flats. In the Valencian capital, commercial premises in all types of neighborhoods proliferate and the precautionary suspension of licenses for one year, extendable for another year, is the first measure of the mayor, the popular María José Catalá, to put the brakes on mass tourism. The second will arrive in 2026 with the ban on megacruceros to dock in the Port of Valencia, an announcement that has already earned it for the first time criticism from the business lobby chaired by the shipping company. Vicente Boluda.

The moratorium on tourist apartments also comes preceded by controversy, because the Patron of Housing for Tourist Use of the Valencian Community (APTURCV) has already requested that the “legal security of legal accommodation and projects already processed in accordance with the law” be respected. In total, the tourist homes counted today are 10,854. The moratorium, in any case, will leave out the entire blocks of tourist apartments and the hotels themselves, despite the fact that the Valencian Association of Short-Term Rental Housing (AVAEC) requested it.

The path that he now wants to explore PP in Valencia aims to promote “quality and sustainable tourism”, in the words of Catalá. “Tourists are welcome,” municipal sources insist, “but we want controlled growth.”

The restrictions on mass tourism come after the rejection of a tourist tax and in full demand to the Government for the expansion of the airport, on the verge of its capacity after having reached the record number of ten million passengers. The housing market is being subjected to severe stress in the Valencian capital. According to the Housing Observatory of the Polytechnic University, the average rental price has increased by 72% since 2019.

Balearics

The Balearic Islands have not yet taken drastic measures on vacation rentals but are taking steps to put a stop to the illegal offer, skyrocketed exponentially in recent years.

The social rejection of the saturation caused by tourism and the incessant escalation of housing prices had its first staging last Saturday, in a demonstration through the streets of Palma that brought together 10,000 people under the motto Mallorca is not for sale. In the march, slogans were mixed against mass tourism, the illegal offer of vacation places and the pressure it exerts on housing prices, which have tripled in recent years.

He Govern crossed data with Hacienda and verified which properties were therefore unregulated. This has allowed the emergence 8,700 illegal homes. The inspectorate of the Consell de Mallorca has intensified its inspections and sanctions.

In Mallorca alone there are 104,000 legal tourist vacation rental places. In 2015 there were 37,725, 275% less. Hotel beds, meanwhile, have grown by 6,6% in that same period. In Minorca and in Ibiza There are another 42,000 regulated places. The institutions do not have any conclusive figure of the illegal homes that exist, but it is estimated that they exceed the legal ones.

The Government that presides Marga Prohens has created a large debate forum with 140 entities and presents this tourist season – with 20 million tourists expected – as a testing ground to collect data and begin to design new regulations during the winter. Prohens defends changes without drastic measures but advocates a change of model. The maximum capacity of the roads will also be studied and the flows of tourists in the most crowded areas will be traced through anonymous mobile phone tracking.

Canary Islands

In other island territories such as the Canary Islands, where citizen unrest is more than noticeable, the regional government is working on the preliminary draft of Law on Sustainable Management of Tourist Use of Housing. The new rule establishes that the 90% of the residential buildable area must be allocated to a permanent address. The growth of this activity has been explosive in recent years and the official registry alone lists 53,938 tourist apartments, although the real and non-standard supply is much greater.

Andalusia

Sevilla has declared ‘war’ on tourist apartments after verifying that they already represent the 50% of accommodation places and, above all, how they negatively affect the neighborhoods in which they proliferate, especially in the historic center. Last March, the City Council approved in plenary session that tourist apartments should not exceed 10% of the total number of family members available in a property. Above that, the veto is total in 11 neighborhoods of the old town.

Seville has been the first to approve a rule of this significance within the framework of the regional law approved at the beginning of this year. Málaga, as explained by municipal sources, is already on the same path to limit them depending on the proportion that exists in a building. In Cadizthe current local government of the PP, has not only maintained the limitations created by José María González, Kichi, but is considering toughening them and has started a battle against tourist apartments that do not comply with municipal regulations. For now, he has denounced 277 cases and the Board has already withdrawn the license from 222 of these apartments. In Granadaanother of the most touristic capitals in Andalusia, the City Council has hired an external consultancy to prepare a diagnosis of the tourist apartments, which are calculated in 3.000.

Catalonia

Two days before the start of the 12-M election campaign, the Generalitat approved an emergency decree law to “stop the flight” of permanent rental contracts to the temporary market and avoid “the roguery of those who avoid price containment” derived from the Law for the right to state housing, in force since the 15th of March. A reduction in income that, for now, only Catalonia applies.

The rule drawn up by the ERC Government, which affected leases of between 31 days and 11 months, needed the validation of the Parliament, but the Permanent Deputation of the Chamber ended up overturning it last Thursday with the votes against Junts, Vox , Ciudadanos and PP, united with the abstention of the PSC. The Republicans only obtained insufficient support from En Comú Podem and the CUP.

With this decree law, the Executive of Peter Aragonés, now in office, had taken the second step in a few months in what he defined as his “global strategy to guarantee the right to housing.” In November, the Generalitat approved a decree law to regulate the urban planning regime for housing for tourist use, which until then could carry out this activity without a time limit through a declaration of responsibility. In February, the PP presented an unconstitutionality appeal before the TC after the parliamentary validation of the rule that restricts the granting of licenses by city councils.

After the approval of the Chamber, with the votes of ERC, PSC, the common and the CUP, the text began to be processed as a bill with the modifications accepted by Esquerra to attract the Yeah of the socialists, who managed to make some points of the initial text more flexible. However, with the end of the legislature due to the electoral advance, the project declined, leaving the initially validated decree in force. The Tourism Registry of Catalonia has 102,700 tourist accommodations registered, although in the National Institute of Statistics there are 45,700 that are registered.

Madrid

Last April, the city council announced the freezing of licenses for housing for tourist use. Data from the council say that there are 13,502 tourist apartments of which only 1,000, 7%, have a license. The administration confirms the “desertization of the city center” since more than 5,000 homes for inhabitants have disappeared and have been replaced by tourists.