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The Sevilla City Council, through Emvisesa, Formalized the Purchase of 18 Empty, Private Houses for Social Uses at the Cost of More than One Million Euros

29 August 2018

The Municipal Housing Company of Sevilla, Emvisesa, concluded a purchase agreement for the acquisition of 18 of the homes it had been offered through its First Program for Acquisition of Empty Houses, at a total investment of 1,043,684 euros, plus adaptation works expected to cost 100,000 euros and the corresponding expenses and taxes.

“This is the fulfilment of another of this government’s commitments by which we received a good response in our quest to incorporate new flats to the housing stock to cover the social needs of the population of Sevilla, given that the existing municipal public housing is already completely occupied,” the delegate for Social Welfare and Employment, Juan Manuel Flores, explained.

After awarding more than 600 homes during the present municipal mandate, Emvisesa has allocated the totality of its housing stock. The result is a strategy of urgent expansion of the public housing stock and the new Sevilla Municipal Housing Plan (PMVS), establishing disparate intervention initiatives in the housing sector to favour access to housing by citizens and respond to different types of the population’s needs, among which is the acquisition of empty homes.

These 18 homes, located in different neighbourhoods of the city, are now added to the 63 obtained through the Ramón Carande land exchange project that have already been delivered to the City Council, as well as those achieved through the rental acquisition program and the agreements signed with banking entities. The objective is included in the Municipal Housing and Land Plan, which established financing of more than 11 million euros for the different acquisition programs by Emvisesa, the Urban Planning Management, Municipal Assets, in addition to external financing. The objective established in the PMVS, consisting of the capture of between 15 and 50 homes per year between 2018 and 2023, will be largely exceeded in 2018, as 81 empty homes have already been acquired.

Emvisesa is already finalising a new campaign to capture vacant homes that will be permanently open, in a similar way to how the Empty Housing Uptake Program (Rental) works. The operation was already approved at the last Municipal Plenary, and the bases for its approval are being finalised in the coming weeks.

These measures will allow the immediate expansion of the municipal stock of housing alongside others planned in the PMVS, such as the development of more than more than 1,000 protected homes through new construction and rehabilitation.

Original Story: Emvisesa

Translation: Richard Turner