Madrid Reduces Inheritance Taxes on Real Estate

28 October 2019 – Last week, the government of Madrid approved the first part of a promised tax cut. The new regulations increase the capital-gains tax bonus on inheritances of property; reducing the general Property and Real Estate Tax (IBI) rate. The government also reduced waste collection fees.

Immediate descendants and spouses can access the benefit, which is expected to save roughly 13.62 million euros per year for a total of 14,000 taxpayers. Currently, the government applies a 95% reduction to real estate taxes for properties with a cadastral value of up to 60,000 euros.

The government also increased the benefit from 75% to 85% for properties with a cadastral value of between 60,000 and 100,000 euros, rising from 50% to 70% for

Original Story: ABC Madrid – Marta R. Domingo

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Developers in Spain Need to Build 2.5 Million New Homes to Satisfy Demand

14 October 2019 Foreign and domestic investors have recently poured a larger and larger amount of money into Spain’s residential rental market. In the last two years, large investment funds and developers like Blackstone, Ares, Greystar, TPG, Aedas, Quabit, Metrovacesa, Vía Célere have invested in the sector, going after the relatively high yields available.

The increasing investment in the sector is due to a series of factors. The last few years have seen major price increases, for both home sales and rentals, in Spain’s biggest cities, particularly in Madrid and Barcelona. The high cost of buying a home is also leading many Spanish families to forgo potentially buying a home, as they would have in the past when prices were more affordable.  Those families are now in the market for rentals.

Considering that the rising prices are due to an imbalance between supply and demand, common sense would suggest that a relatively easy solution would be to great increase the supply of homes for sale and rent. The total number of homes for rent in Spain is equivalent to 23% of the total housing stock, 9% lower than the European average of 34%.

To reach the European average, therefore, developers would have to build another 2.5 million homes, taking the total for Spain to 8.5 million homes. Building that many homes in the next fifteen years would require that developers construct approximately 167,000 houses per year during that period. That amount of development would require a total investment of roughly €300 billion, or 25% of Spain’s current GDP.

The need for that kind of investment in affordable rental homes to help curb rising prices is beginning to be addressed in a series of measures by some political parties, such as the PSOE. One of the proposals includes a law that would facilitate the transfer of the surface rights for public lands to developers which agree to building affordable housing, a measure that developers have demanded for years.

One of the biggest obstacles to such large-scale development is the complexity of managing and aligning interests between the municipal, regional and central governments. Market sources recommend common regulatory frameworks to facilitate the creation of greater legal certainty and the agility to obtain the necessary licensing and permits.

Original Story: El Confidencial – Elena Sanz

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Madrid City Council Gives Preliminary Approval to Operation Chamartín

29 July 2019 – Richard D. K. Turner

The Madrid City Hall gave conditional approval to the Madrid Nuevo Norte project, also known as Operation Chamartín, yesterday 25 years after it was first proposed.

The modifications to the General Urban Development Plan will be sent for final approval to the government of the Community of Madrid.

The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida stated that they would maintain the project originally agreed to by the Ministry of Development, the private developer leading the project, Distrito Castellana Norte (DCN) and the Madrid City Council. The mayor added that construction is expected to begin in 2020 or 2021 and generate 200,000 direct jobs.

Community organisations and environmental groups such as the Regional Federation of Neighbourhood Associations of Madrid (FRAVM), Ecologists in Action and the North Zone Platform, stated that they would contest the development in court.

Original Story: El Diário

Spanish Supreme Court Rules Against Barcelona’s Tax on Empty Properties

2 July 2019 – Richard D. K. Turner

The Third Chamber of the Supreme Court dealt Ada Colau a setback, ruling against a penalty on empty dwellings in the hands of financial institutions. The Supreme Court upheld the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia’s ruling stating that the Barcelona City Council does not have the power to impose such a tax.

The municipal ordinance had set a rate of 633 euros for each case opened upon discovering an empty flat and 286 euros for each additional requirement in cases where the owner failed to comply with the municipal order.

Original Story: El Confidencial – Elena Sanz

 

Carmena’s New Housing Plan: Rezoning in Exchange for Subsidised Housing

8 February 2019

The Madrid City Council is offering to rezone an industrial plot as land to residential in exchange for “30%, 50% or 70%” use as social housing.

Madrid is now following in Ada Colau’s footsteps, asking for investments in social housing from private developers. The Madrid City Council will offer to rezone an industrial site on the condition that part of it is converted into subsidised housing (VPO). José Manuel Calvo, the Councillor for Sustainable Urban Development, announced the decision in an interview with EjePrime. The initiative is a reflection of the Madrid City Council’s desire to invest in social housing.

Since the public stock of homes began falling in 2010, the government in Madrid has been unable to return to the levels seen before the crisis. When Manuela Carmena arrived at City Hall, the municipality had less than 6,000 public housing units. The mayor committed to adding another 4,000, half of which has been achieved four months before the end of her term.

The City Council of Madrid is now offering to work with private developers to increase the public stock of housing during the next government mandate. The idea is to rezone industrial lands so that developers can build homes, a percentage of which would have to be allocated to subsidised housing.

Carmena’s government requires any plots of land for subsidised housing to be independent

“I can tell developers that I will rezone the land as residential and then ask for 30%, 50% or 70% [for subsidised housing],” says Mr Calvo. While the exact figures have yet to be determined, the City Council believes that the developers’ investments must be “profitable” while the “municipality wants to receive the greatest possible number of homes.”

Carmena also insists that any plots used for subsidised homes be independent to avoid the Ada Colau’s situation in Barcelona. Ms Colau wants to oblige developers to set aside 30% for social housing buy her “proposal has run into legal difficulties because the homes are owned ‘proindiviso’,” meaning that the City Council jointly runs the residential associations with the developers.

In such cases, “as an administration, maybe you need the housing for needy families and the community can deny it,” says Calvo. “The proposal in Barcelona does not work,” he concludes.

The councillor is suggesting an alternative to Ada Colau’s proposal

Colau’s proposal was approved in a plenary session of the Barcelona City Council last September, with favourable votes by all political parties except the Ciudadanos (Citizens) who abstained, and the PP, which voted against. According to the municipality’s forecasts, the monthly rent for social housing of about 80 square meters should be 512 euros or €136,000 to buy. Taking into account that 1,114 apartments are built each year, the City is planning on 334 new homes per year.

The City Council’s proposal was not well received by developers, who met that same week in a commission to study the measure. The Catalan Association of Developers (APCE) questioned the legality of the proposal and warned that it could mean an end to new developments.

Original Story: EjePrime – Marta Casado Pla

Translation: Richard Turner

Castellón Plans on Approving New General Plan in 2019

7 October 2018

The version including the resolution of contentions will be completed before the end of the year.

The government of Castellón’s team has set December as its deadline to send the new version of the General Structural Plan to the Regional Ministry of Territorial Planning, including the resolution of contentions, with the expectation that the city may have its new urban planning ordinance approved in 2019, after four years of planning rules – extended to 2021 – and after years of litigation to comply with the Supreme Court ruling that had cancelled the PGOU of 2000 in 2008.

According to the Councillor for Territorial Planning, Rafa Simó, the government’s technicians are continuing to study the more than 500 contentions presented. Without specifying yet which ones may be accepted and which ones may not, he stated that their goal is to resolve them “prioritising the general interest”, and write a second version of the General Structural Plan with the accepted resolutions, including the sectoral reports, to take it to an ordinary plenary session in November or December, without ruling out an extraordinary one.

PROCEDURE // The document will then be sent to the Ministry, which will demand as many modifications as it deems appropriate and will return the General Plan to the City Council, which will have to resolve them and open the second phase of exposition and contentions. After that, it will be able to write the definitive General Plan and send it back to Territory, which will then have to authorise it. “We hope that the Ministry will be agile because they have been monitoring the General Plan since the beginning,” said Simó.

In parallel, progress is being made on the detailed plan, which only requires the City Council’s approval. After the six briefings in the last weeks, the public exhibition will continue until November 8. With the deadline in hand, Simó declined to reveal how many contentions have been submitted, nor their content. The procedure for this includes the resolution of any contentions and a new phase of public exposition, which is to coincide with the second exhibition of the structural plan.

Original Story: El Periódico Mediterráneo – Estefania Moliner

Translation: Richard Turner

Euskadi Will Be Allowed to Expropriate Homes That Remain Uninhabited for More Than Two Years

2 October 2018

The Constitutional Court endorsed fundamental aspects of the Basque housing law that the PP government appealed in 2016.

The Constitutional Court (TC) has endorsed the ability of the Basque Government (Euskadi) and regional municipalities to proceed with the forced expropriation of homes that remain uninhabited for a period of more than two years without just cause and are located in areas where there is a proven demand for public or social housing. The institutions will have the power to place the properties on the social housing rental market when a need is found in the areas they are located.

“This does not mean that the Government or the municipalities are going to move ahead with a wave of expropriations,” the Basque housing councillor, socialist Iñaki Arriola, stressed. The pronouncement by Spain’s highest court let a decree stand that would permit the forced rental of homes in areas that have remained unoccupied for an extended period and where there is an elevated demand for social housing. It is, said Arriola, a “balance between policies incentivising social housing and punitive measures in the case where properties, such as housing, are not adequately put to use.”

The latest census of empty and uninhabited homes in the Basque territory will be made public tomorrow by the councillor, who has so far declined to cite the figure. The previous report, with data for 2015, noted that there were 86,325 empty dwellings (8.3% of all Basque households). Of these, almost a third (32%) were used as seasonal housing, and the remaining 68% were classified as unoccupied. Of the 58,697 unoccupied homes, more than half (35,647) were not on the market to rent or sell.

Homes will not be considered unoccupied when they are second homes and when their inhabitants are temporarily absent due to relocations stemming for work, health, dependency and social emergency reasons that justify the absence, Arriola said. Before declaring a dwelling unoccupied, the relevant institution must open a file, summon the owners for a hearing and later determine whether the situation merits forcibly placing the property on the social housing market through a temporary expropriation.

The Government of the PP appealed the Basque Housing Law in 2016 before the Constitutional Court, requesting that the court rule that several of the law’s precepts exceeded the regional government’s powers and encroached on the powers of the Spanish state. The Basque law, which establishes the subjective right to dispose of a home, was approved in June 2015 on the initiative of the PSE with the support of EH Bildu and UPyD. The PNV and the PP voted against the measure.

The last census stated that there are 58,697 uninhabited homes in Euskadi, the Basque territory

The appeal by Rajoy’s government was based on the fact that the Basque legislation imposes a new form of regulatory oversight on the right to own property, stating that ownership brings with it the duty to inhabit the residence. The State Attorney challenged 13 articles and several sections, most of which refer to the definition of uninhabited housing and the regional government’s tools for dealing with those unoccupied households and which are considering to be in contravention of their social function as established by law.

Councillor Arriola stated that the TC’s ruling validates “without any restriction” the ability of Basque institutions to intervene with unoccupied dwellings that “do not fulfil a social function.” The regulations give the Basque Government and municipalities the ability to determine when a house is considered to be uninhabited and provides those institutions with the instruments “to encourage their occupation or penalise their lack of use.”

The Minister of Housing approved of the court’s ruling which, in his opinion, grants the Basque government the “full jurisdiction” to regulate the sector with legal certainty. The court, however, also ruled that the article granting financial institutions, their real estate subsidiaries and asset management entities the ability to subject property owners to forced expropriation for the temporary use of dwellings subject to eviction proceedings for foreclosure is unconstitutional.

Original Story: El País – Mikel Ormazabal

Photo: Luis Sevillano

Translation: Richard Turner

Helena Beunza, General Secretary for Housing: “The Government Is Not Looking at Limiting Rental Prices”

9 August 2018

Helena Beunza has just arrived from the Valencian government to her new position as the General Secretary for Housing within the Ministry of Public Works. Like many other people who come to Madrid, she had to look for a flat. The PSOE-affiliated minister, responsible for housing policy in Spain, decided to rent.

An idealista/news exclusive interview with the new General Secretary for Housing at the Ministry of Public Works. We went deeper into the measures previously announced by the Minister José Luis Ábalos regarding rental policy, an increasingly important market for the sector and the Spanish government; the current state of Spain’s stock of housing, especially empty houses; the articulation of urban planning and the future of social housing in the country.

The current government wants to reformulate its housing policies to align them with the current state of the rental housing market. Ever more Spanish households are opting to rent, whether it is by need or conviction, and the sector requires better regulation.

The minister José Luis Ábalos already announced in the Congress of Deputies that the current government intends to upend the residential rental market with three big sets of reforms:

On the one hand, the government intends to amend the Urban Rental Act (LAU), which was signed into law in 2013 under the government of the PP. “In this amendment, we would return once again to a model of five-year contracts and three-year extensions. We would also revisit the regulations for security deposits,” Helena Beunza summarised. “On the other hand, we will establish a generalised understanding of the holiday home and tourist rental sector, so that the relevant authorities can then define the corresponding legal regimes in each Regional Community,” she said.

Action plan for 20,000 subsidised rental homes

The Minister of Development also announced the Spanish government’s initiative to allocate 20,000 subsidised homes to the rental market for young people and low-income families in those areas where the rental price has skyrocketed.

“It is a very ambitious project that not only covers legislation but the management on the part of the State at a fundamental level, in coordination with the Regional Communities and the city councils,” the general secretary noted. “Obviously, this measure alone will not solve the problem. These 20,000 homes, which will involve both new construction and renovations, are not enough, but it is a way to begin working with town councils and the CCAA (Regional Communities) for the creation of a public stock of rental housing that can be managed both publicly and through public-private partnerships,” Ms Beunza clarified.

The third group of measures that are important to highlight are the those aimed at improving the transparency of the Spanish real estate market. We know that greater access is needed, for everyone, to data and added information not just regarding the housing market, but also that for land.

Regarding taxes, we will work with the IRPF and with the IBI

To coordinate all these measures, the Ministry of Development will participate in an interministerial working group to define the legislative and tax policies that will be implemented in the housing sector. “It’s too early to talk about concrete measures. Those measures are expected to emerge from the discussions held within the interministerial working group. Regarding taxes, we will work with the IRPF and with the IBI, but the Ministry of Finance will have a leading role regarding the formulation of the tax measures that we would eventually adopt.”

Minister Ábalos stated that improvements to the tax regime associated with housing, which will go back to offering tax deductions (IRPF) and incentives to encourage property owners to place their homes on the rental market. Although it will be his colleague, María Jesús Montero, at Treasury, who will decide upon and implement any measures.

Any measures that would impact the Real Estate Tax (IBI) would have to be included in the Revised Text of the Local Authority Regulation Act, and the town councils would have to decide on their application.

The government also announced that it has ruled out any artificial limits on rental market prices. “We must differentiate between limiting rental prices from the limitation of prices that are set as a mere reference. This government has no plans to consider these issues,” says the general secretary for housing at the Ministry of Public Works.

Another one of the measures that were discarded, and the secretary states that was not even discussed, is the calculation of the IRPF (income tax for individuals) accounting for rental income.

Expand legal protections for rentals

The government does not want to limit its work to tax matters, but also intends to look at improving the legal protections within the rental sector so that the small owners can have guarantees and adequate compensation for placing their home on the rental market.

“We have to work on legal protections for both landlords and tenants, for both parties,” says Helena Beunza. “We need policies that treat housing as what it is, a fundamental right. We would have liked that the existing current speedy eviction law contained additional measures to take into account families that are occupying a home because they needed housing since we need to differentiate that occupancy from other types of occupancies.”

Secretary Beunza believes that a great deal of work will be needed to coordinate the various administrations to find a housing solution for families at risk of social exclusion. “Families need to be evaluated, and there needs to be coordination with social services so that we can help the people that want to enter the system, and who can meet the necessary conditions to sign contracts for public housing.”

From tourist rentals to empty homes

Real estate experts and regular citizens have their opinions as to the cause of the increase in rental prices. Blame is usually given to the growth in tourist apartments, the high number of empty homes and the socimis investments in the residential market. The general secretary analysed each point.

“There is a multiplicity of causes that have come together at a given moment and that have given rise to the situation in which we find ourselves now. It is too simplistic to state that tourist rentals have been the sole determinant in the increase in rents. While that could have been the primary factor in some places, but it is a very specific impact in very specific areas. The same thing holds for the increases in rental prices. We cannot speak of similar increases throughout Spain, but there have been huge variations in the increases, depending on the regions and cities involved, “the minister added.

Certain regions have already created registries of both empty homes and people seeking homes. “Yes, it is true that there are a lot of empty homes in Spain. One empty home is already too much. However, the first thing we need to understand is exactly how much empty housing there is in Spain and then we can work together with the CCAA. We need to improve data and transparency,” Ms Beunza stated.

How VPO (subsidised housing) fits into the housing stock

The Government of Pedro Sánchez has had little room for manoeuvre since taking office but has also found that many policies and items were already approved, starting with the General Budgets for 2018.

Regarding housing, the previous Minister of Public Works, Íñigo de la Serna, presented the general guidelines of the State Housing Plan for the period 2018-2021 last March. “It is not our plan, but we understood after listening to the CCAA that the priority was to sign the agreements so that the CCAA could begin to act on and process their files, mainly for calls for rental subsidies, which is he most urgent matter,” Secretary Beunza said.

The general secretary did criticise, however, is the current social housing plan (VPO), which the minister stated the PSOE would begin work on right away. “One of the issues that this Government has detected is the need to rethink the concept of official social housing. Moreover, we must take a look at all those lands which are already qualified in our country to be used in the VPO. In the current state housing plan, the word VPO does not appear.”

Land cannot again become a subject of speculation in this country

She also emphasised policies regarding land ready for development (finalist land). “We must coordinate our land policies with our housing policies because both the rental and sales markets need them to be aligned. Spain has land that is ready for development. That land is not necessarily where the developers want to build, but there is land in both Madrid and Barcelona. Another consideration is the price of that land. That is something we must consider because we can’t allow a repeat of what happened in our country before. Land cannot become a subject of speculation in this country again,” she argued.

Speaking of land, one of the biggest dilemmas facing the construction and real estate sectors also came up: the state of urban planning in Spain. “We must try to make the Spanish urban planning system more flexible and simplified. The State, although it is not directly responsible, has a clear will to define a path to accompany the CCAA (autonomous regions) in this process. We cannot take eight or 10 years to approve a general plan, simply because the economic and social reality of a particular city is not the same when a plan is approved as when it began to be written.”

The sector has been denouncing the amount of litigation in the construction industry for some time. “The problem is not just the litigation, but also but also the cascading annulments of planning instruments. It has generated a serious problem in our country since, when a general plan is annulled due to formal or material defects, the rest of the planning instruments also become null and void,” the general secretary explained.

The ministry intends to build upon the work of the previous Executive to articulate legislation that will increase legal protections and simplify urban planning.

The general secretary for housing still sees a lot of work ahead before a true state-level housing policy is defined. “There is so much to do regarding housing policies that we need to start at the beginning, and the foundations of housing policy at a state level in Spain do not yet exist,” the Secretary concluded.

Original Story: Idealista – David Marrero & Luis Manzano

Translation: Richard Turner

 

Madrid Plans Drastic New Rules that Could Affect 95% of Tourist Apartments

17 August 2018

The draft regulations from City Hall would mean any flat without separate access to the street would need a license.

The boom in tourist apartments in Madrid rented out via accommodation sites such as Airbnb is causing problems with regard to habitability, harmonious cohabitation, and safety, and is “affecting the price of housing,” causing an “astronomical rise in the price of rents” in the city centre. That’s according to new regulations for the sector proposed by City Hall, and which plan to drastically limit the supply of vacation homes in the most central neighbourhoods.

The plan states that the Airbnb model is causing the “expulsion of residents”

The rise in tourist apartments on offer via sites such as Airbnb and Homeaway is rapidly changing cities across the world, and as such has sparked debate over the pros and cons of the model. A report published this week by Spain’s competition watchdog, the CNMC, praised the arrival of such sites, pointing out that they offer an income stream for property owners, drive down prices of vacations, and “empower” the consumer.

In contrast, the cons can be found in the new plan from Madrid City Hall, which will be up for debate until September 27, ahead of its definitive approval.

The plan, to which EL PAÍS has had access, states that the Airbnb model is causing the “expulsion of residents,” and is having an “impact on the habitability of buildings, harmonious cohabitation, the safety of residents, and the use of public spaces, and is affecting the price of housing and the growth of other economic activities.”

In order to defend “residential use” of these neighbourhoods, the new plan states that tourist apartments that are rented out on a professional basis (i.e. more than three months a year) must obtain a license. And in districts in the centre and another three neighbouring areas, these licenses will not be granted if the apartment in question does not have an entrance that is independent from the rest of the flats in the block.

City Hall says that it is not trying to eliminate this kind of accommodation altogether

In practice, this will veto the vast majority of the current supply of tourist rentals, given that the rules will also exclude ground floor apartments that can be directly accessed from the street. When Madrid City Hall announced the plan several months ago, they forecast that this could affect 95% of apartments on offer.

City Hall says that it is not trying to eliminate this kind of accommodation altogether and points out that apartments that are rented out for fewer than three months a year, or where just a room is offered, will not be subject to these rules. The aim, they say, is to reduce the saturation of the market and to “decentralize use” so that more apartments are offered in other areas of the city.

The draft plan argues that the centre of the city is easily accessible from practically any area of the city, with four out of every five neighbourhoods in the capital under half-an-hour away via public transport.

The aim is to reduce the saturation of the market and to “decentralize use” so that more apartments are offered in other areas of the city.

The text describes a process by which more and more apartments are being converted into tourist rentals, thus reducing the stock of housing in the residential market and pushing up rents, as well as seeing many residents forced to leave and turning the centre into a high-income zone. “This increase in real estate market prices can have significant negative impacts,” the report states, “implying a new residential class segregation.”

The draft regulations also point out that the model is having a particular effect on young people, “who traditionally have rented properties in these neighbourhoods in groups.” What’s more, the text continues, this “colonization” is changing economic activity in these areas, prompting a greater focus on meeting demands of tourists.

Original Story: El País – Julio Núñez / J. A. Aunión

Foto: Luis Sevillano

Translation: Richard Turner

 

Basque Municipality Sells its First Plot for Flats in Zorrotzaurre for €6.3 Million

30 August 2018

Last week, the Bilbao City Council approved a measure to sell a plot of land to build a hundred homes.

The Governing Board of the Bilbao City Council approved last week a measure to sell its first plot of land for the development of homes, as a part of the so-called Zorrotzaurre operation. The measure specifies that the Municipality must obtain a minimum of 6.32 million euros with the objective to develop two buildings with a total of more than one hundred price-controlled homes.

Specifically, the almost 2,900-square-meter plot of land is denominated SI-1 and is located on the right bank of the Deusto canal, next to La Tomatera’s recently opened rowing pavilion.

Two buildings, totalling 10,500 square meters, will be erected on the plot of land, with two- to three-bedroom flats. Garage floors and underground storage rooms will occupy more than 5,600 square meters, and almost another thousand square meters will be allocated to commercial premises on the buildings’ ground floors. It is the first housing operation launched in Zorrotzaurre by the Bilbao City Council and serves to reinforce the construction of housing in an area of urban intervention.

It was the last plot of land that remained to be activated in the strip of riverbank that looks over the Deusto canal, located below the areas of Ibarrekolanda and Sarriko. With the decision of the Aburto team, the five plots of land defined in the reparcelling plan are already in different stages of development.

SI-2, which is located next to SI-1, is owned by Visesa, the Basque government’s development company for dependant housing. The design of the two controlled-price residential blocks has already been awarded to an architecture studio. This means that, in all probability, the buildings themselves will be built directly by the public entity itself. In this case, Visesa will opt for the same formula it used to build the Official Protected Housing (VPO) skyscrapers in Bolueta: take over the development of the buildings and sell the flats directly to the future owners.

Down the river, the other two sites, SI-3 and SI-4, are also showing heightened activity. The developer Jauregizar has been building four apartment blocks for almost a year, the first two already sold to VPO applicants who were on the Etxebide list, for a total of 99 homes. On the other hand, the 132 flats in the two adjoining buildings will be sold at a free market price. All were sold under a cooperative regime, within the ViveZorrozaurre.

Finished structures

At present, the construction company is working at a good rhythm. The structure of the four apartment blocks have been finished, and work is proceeding on the interiors. The buildings that will house the VPO have eight floors, plus the ground floor retail premises, while the free market flats have ten floors plus the ground floor premises.

The last lot of riverfront land, the one next to the Sarriko school, is also owned by Visesa and was sold last July. The publicly-owned company decided to tender the land to a private developer to build 153 market-priced homes. Visesa will obtain a good return for the SI-5 since the minimum bid for the site is 22.65 million euros.

As for the design of the buildings, although each one may be designed by different architectural studios, all the residential blocks will have to have a similar aesthetic.

The Zorrotzaurre Board had already decided more than two years ago that the entire urban intervention, both on the right bank of the Deusto canal and all the buildings that will arise on the island in the future, will again have to have a similar aesthetic.

The first element in common is the format of the building, which will be similar to a chromosome (a kind of H), which the deceased urbanist Zaha Hadid drew up in his Master Plan, in an attempt to have as many flats as possible facing the estuary. The second is that all the blocks will have a similar height, between eight and twelve floors.

Over the next five years, the new residential area on the shore of the Bilbao river will gradually grow until it covers a linear front of almost 550 meters in length, which will be the first joint settlement carried out under the Zorrotzaurre operation.

Original Story: Deia – Alberto G. Alonso

Translation: Richard Turner