Town Hall of Madrid Approves Legislation to Close 10,000+ VUTs

27 March 2019 – El País

On Wednesday, the Town Hall of Madrid approved a special plan to regulate the licences required to operate tourist apartments (“viviendas de uso turístico” or VUTs).

To obtain a licence, a VUT must now have a separate access from the other homes in the building, which means, in practice, that 95% of the establishments of this kind in Madrid will have to close. More than 10,000 VUTs will be affected, according to municipal calculations. The legislation applies to those properties defined as VUT by the Community of Madrid, which are effectively those that are leased for 90 days or more per year.

The new legislation, which was supported by Ahora Madrid and the PSOE, will enter into force within the next few days. Non-compliance will trigger a process to cease the activity in that property, like in the case of a bar operating without a licence, rather than the imposition of a fine.

It was in January 2018 that the Town Hall of Madrid established that VUTs – homes that are leased for three months or more – represent an economic activity and, therefore, require a licence. At the same time, a moratorium was declared on the granting of licences whilst the new legislation was drafted, which has now been approved.

The impact on the more than 40,000 reservations that have been made in accommodation of this kind for the Gay Pride celebrations in July 2019 is far from clear.

Original story: El País (by Gloria Rodríguez-Pina)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Inditex Obtains Licence to Build a new Textile Design Building in Sabón

28 February 2019 – La Opinión A Coruña

The Local Government in Arteixo has granted a construction licence to Inditex to erect a new building at its headquarters, on the Sabón industrial estate, which will be used for textile design activity. The plot on which the new structure will be situated is located on the corner of Avenida de la Diputación with A Ponte (opposite the entrance to the ITV). The plans presented by the company to the municipality to obtain the municipal authorisation reflects that the construction work will cost €31.5 million.

The multi-national company will use this new space for “textile design activity”, according to the construction licence. The height of the new building will be 24 metres and it will sit on a plot measuring 54,300 m2. The authorisation granted by the municipality indicates that the deadline for starting the construction work is six months and for its completion is three years (…).

Original story: La Opinión A Coruña (by Iván Aguiar)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Eurofund Finalises the Entry of a Partner into its Project in Lleida & Starts Marketing

25 January 2019 – Eje Prime

Eurofund is taking another step towards making the Torres Salses retail park a reality. The company is finalising the incorporation of a partner into its project in Lleida, which will result in a global investment of between €80 million and €100 million. In parallel, Eurofund has now started to market the retail park.

According to explanations provided by sources in the sector speaking to EjePrime, the group is finalising the signing of an agreement with a capitalist partner to handle the investment that the complex will entail. It is a typical move within Eurofund’s strategy, which typically turns to partners to finance investments whilst the fund manager itself takes care of the management.

In parallel, Eurofund has now started the marketing phase of the retail park in Lleida, which will have a surface area of 56,000 m2. The company has started making contact with operators in the leisure (cinema), restaurant, DIY, furniture, gym and food sectors, typical firms in these types of developments.

The Torres Salses project, whose construction will begin in the autumn (2019), is located between the Magraneres and La Bordeta neighbourhoods of Lleida. The complex will become one of the few commercial and leisure spaces in the area.

Last October, Eurofund received the green light from the plenary of the Town Hall of Lleida to undertake the project. In December, Eurofund Parc Lleida signed an urban management agreement with the Town Hall to execute the widening and lengthening of the Víctor Torres road and the modification of the urban planning order for the Sur 42 sector of Torre Salses.

Subsequently, in the middle of December, Eurofund made effective the purchase from Sareb of 140,000 m2 of land in Torre Salses (Lleida). The purchase, carried out through Eurofund Parc Lleida, was completed after Eurofund successfully navigated Sareb’s processes, in particular, those relating to overseas investments.

Following those processes, Eurofund is now just waiting for the commercial licence to be granted for the retail park.

Grupo Eurofund currently owns retail assets amounting to more than €3.5 billion, including centres that it has constructed, as well as those still under construction. The fund manager was founded in 1994 and its first major development was Parc Vallès, in Terrassa (Barcelona).

The company is the owner of complexes such as Puerto Venecia in Zaragoza, and has an alliance with the British operator Intu to develop new shopping centres in Málaga, Valencia and Vigo. Over the last eighteen months, Eurofund Capital Partners has converted almost €350 million into real estate operations in Spain.

Original story: Eje Prime (by P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Carmena to Outlaw 95% of Madrid’s Tourist Apartments

27 July 2018 – Expansión

The days are numbered for tourist apartments in the centre of Madrid. Yesterday, the Town Hall of Madrid gave the green light to legislation that will put a limit on holiday rentals: 90 days or three months, is the maximum term that a person may rent their home for those purposes. From day 91 onwards, owners will need to have a commercial lodging licence, just like hotels.

Yesterday, the Spanish capital’s Governing Body approved the Special Plan for the Regulation of the Use of Lodgings, which will apply to the city’s most central neighbourhoods. The plan is expected to enter into force at the beginning of 2019, after being approved by the plenary session in October.

The Town Hall led by the mayor Manuela Carmena is also going to prohibit the operation of all homes destined to tourist rental that do not have an independent entrance, like in the case of hotels. According to the Town Hall, with that requirement, “95% of homes that operate as tourist apartments will no longer be able to do so”.

“Specifically, the affected radius will span 52.7 km, distributed in three concentric rings, depending on the massification of the ads. According to the Town Hall, in the rest of the municipality, “the existing legislation will be maintained”. Madrid is, in fact, the European capital where the number of adverts on these platforms has grown by the most, up by 67% in 2017 with respect to 2016, according to a report from Colliers International.

With this legislation, Madrid’s Town Hall is opening a new chapter in the fight between public administrations and tourist apartments. Its intention is to outlaw almost all of the tourist apartments that are advertised on platforms such as Airbnb in the centre of the city.

The prohibition is tacit. The trick is that 95% of the homes advertised on these platforms in the capital do not have an independent entrance. That limitation will only exist in the case of homes that are leased for more than three months. The 90-day limit draws a line between what is considered a home for tourist use and a property in the collaborative economy.

Obtaining a licence is not going to be easy. It will be subject to zoning, following in the footsteps of cities such as Barcelona. Once the Special Plan comes into force, it will not be possible to change the use of a home located within the inner two rings from residential to tertiary, given that those properties account for the majority of the regulated and unregulated tourist supply. Together with this new plan, the Town Hall has approved a moratorium that prohibits the granting of tourist licences of any kind for one year.

Putting a cap on rents

The objective of the plan is to preserve residential use in the central areas of the city that, with the tourist boom and rise of online platforms, are seeing rising rental prices.

In this vein, the Town Hall wants to establish maximum rental prices. To that end, and as it already did in the case of the request for the tourist tax, the delegate for Sustainable Urban Development, José Manuel Calvo, yesterday asked Sanchez’s Governments for the necessary powers.

Original story: Expansión (by I. Benedito)

Translation: Carmel Drake

A Turning Point for the In Tempo Building in Benidorm

1 June 2018 – Diario Información

The In Tempo building in Benidorm is starting a new phase and putting an end to the previous phase that was fraught with economic and legal problems. The new company that acquired the property from the bad bank  Sareb has now received the green light to finish the construction work and start marketing the homes in the tallest residential building in Europe given that it has been officially granted all of the construction permits. In addition, the property developer behind the tower block, the company Olga Urbana, has also ceased to exist.

Just three days ago, the Town Hall of Benidorm, through a decree from the Councillor for Urban Planning, Lourdes Caselles, to which this newspaper has had access, approved the issue of the transfer of the urban planning licence that was previously held by Olga Urbana SL, the property developer behind the project, to the new company that owns the building, Teach Spire SLU.

That licence was granted to the former company in 2006 for the construction of a building comprising 269 homes, 398 parking spaces and 133 storerooms (…). The same decree also covers the transfer of the construction project from the former company in favour of the new owner. With this step, the new company now has all the rights and obligations in place resulting from the transfer of the licences.

Now, the new company has the green light to finish the construction work. The new owner of the In Tempo building in Benidorm, the firm SVP Global, forecasts that the property will become a reality within 12 months and that it will be able to start marketing the 269 homes before the summer, according to a statement issued in April.

In the autumn, the Company for the Management of Assets proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System (Sareb) sold the property’s debt to SVP Global for more than €60 million. The bad bank had been left with a loan amounting to €108 million five years ago albeit secured by the tallest building in the Community of Valencia.

The project, which was first approved almost a decade ago, has a 93% completion rate and what has been built is in a good condition despite the fact that the construction work was suspended four years ago after the Alicante-based property developer Olga Urbana filed for bankruptcy (…).

Not only has a chapter been closed for In Tempo in terms of the building permits, but also, the property developer Olga Urbana has also ceased to exist following its bankruptcy. The Official Gazette of the Mercantile Registry (Borme) of Alicante published the inscription of the dissolution of the company yesterday, issued by Mercantile Court number 1 in Alicante, a process that was started in 2014, according to the publication (…).

Original story: Diario Información (by A. Vicente)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cerquia’s Directors Launch New Hotel Development Company: Xpandia

14 February 2018 – Eje Prime

The managers of Cerquia have set their sights on achieving five stars. Carlos Cercadillo, Javier Pérez Picallo and Jesús Salinero, all senior members of the Spanish company, have teamed up with a group of investors to leap into the hotel sector. The executives have launched Xpandia Projects, a company specialising in hotel development with a focus on Spain and Portugal, according to Pérez Picallo, CEO of Cerquia, speaking to Eje Prime.

Picallo will be in charge of the new project, although he will also continue in his position at Cerquia, as will Cercadillo, who is the President of the company and Salinero, who leads the expansion department.

“The hotels will be urban properties and they will be handed over turnkey-style to the operators”, explains the CEO of the company (…). The objective of the property developer is to hand over 800 rooms over the next three years. For the time being, the company is going to work on three projects, two in Lisbon and one in Valencia. The latter, located on Calle Guillem de Gastro, is on the verge of being granted its licence, with the aim of being completed and ready for delivery in 2020. In the case of the Portuguese assets, the delivery will take place in 2018 and 2019, respectively. In total, these three hotels will place 386 rooms on the market. Some of the major operators for which the firm is going to work include groups such as Accor, Iberostar, Hotusa, Vincci and B&B.

The development of the assets will be undertaken through both the renovation of buildings, as well as the construction of new build properties. The first project in Valencia and one of the projects in Lisbon involve the complete renovation of two properties. In addition, during this first phase, the company has pre-agreements to develop hotels in Madrid, Valencia, Alicante, Sevilla, Málaga, Bilbao and Donostia.

Xpandia is not planning to accumulate assets itself. “We will not hold onto the assets, instead we will sell them to investors who will operate them after we complete the building work”, explains Picallo, adding that “in some cases, we will hand over the hotels completely decorated and furnished”. The only hotel that the new company will own is a property in Lisbon, currently owned by Cerquia, which will be transferred from one portfolio to another. Despite the obvious synergies between the group and the property developer, “this is a project that will operate outside of Cerquia”, said its CEO.

The property developer will work on all stages of the projects from the location and selection of the properties to the drafting of the technical plans and the organisation of the construction work. Location wise, the properties will always “be in cities, primarily in central areas, to respond to the tourist interest that operators demand”, says Picallo. The property developer will study 100 potential projects per year.

The company is not going to work in Barcelona for the time being. Although the Catalan capital is the most touristic city in Spain, the property developer considers that “there is too much uncertainty around obtaining hotel licences in the city” (…).

During this first phase, the hotel operators that Xpandia is working with are expected to invest around €30 million. The hotels that the company is going to develop will be 3- and 4-star properties.

The group driving the project, Cerquia, is a company dedicated to the management and operation of its own real estate assets. The company, created in 2006, has offices, hotels and homes for rent in a portfolio that spans a surface area of approximately 20,000 m2 in the office sector alone across the Iberian Peninsula.

The firm’s clients include companies such as Banco Santander, Uria Menéndez, Garrigues, Catalana Occidente, Hoteles Vincci,  Bausch & Lomb, Intermoney, Worx, Lycamobile and Shine Ibérica, amongst others. For 2018, the group’s roadmap is to maintain its activity and continue with the progress of its three residential developments.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Jabier Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Aedas Homes Unveils its Plans for Hacienda del Rosario (Sevilla)

8 January 2018 – ABC Sevilla

A new neighbourhood with more than 1,000 homes for families aged between 30 and 45 at affordable prices. That is the project that is now being built in Hacienda del Rosario, right opposite the Decathlon store and next to the Parsi Industrial Estate. The aim is to develop the city’s urban planning project and recover the demographic indices last seen a decade ago.

The Aedas Homes group is going to build 1,046 two-, three- and four-bedroom homes in seven 10-storey towers over a surface area of 93,000 m2, of which 73,000 m2 will comprise green space. And the Town Hall is going to build another 218 social housing properties on an adjacent plot, owned by the Urban Planning Department, which Emvisesa has already started to process. That means that by the start of 2019, Sevilla will have a new district with more than 2,000 homes, including not only these projects but also the one in Santa Bárbara.

On Monday, the mayor, Juan Espadas, visited the site where Aedas – which is also responsible for the Cisneo Alto project and the new Ramón y Cajal urbanisations – is starting work on land that it purchased in 2016 from Gabriel Rojas in the East of the city. Specifically, the plots are located between the A-92 and the shopping centre that houses the aforementioned Decathlon store. The access roads have already been built and the Town Hall has granted the relevant licences for the construction of the residential areas, which will include a park measuring seven hectares, a social club and common areas with a swimming pool and padel courts.

For Espadas, “this project is not simply a housing development, but rather the creation of a new neighbourhood in Sevilla, which means that we are at the beginning of the post-crisis and we have left behind the black hole in the construction sector”. The area of expansion is destined for “established families who want a more comfortable environment at a good price”, explains the mayor. The regional director of Aedas, Diego Chacón, highlight that these homes will cost between €120,000 and €150,000, and will be financed by Banco Santander and constructed by San José. The first tower, which will have 142 homes, will be handed over within a year. And from then, the area will come to life continuously in search of a clear objective that the major himself has admitted: “The registration of citizens (‘empadronamiento’) in the city will be activated again”.

Original story: ABC Sevilla (by Alberto García Reyes)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Barcelona’s Town Hall Approves Expansion Of Pedralbes Shopping Centre

10 November 2017 – Expansión

The Town Hall of Barcelona has granted the licence corresponding to the expansion and renovation of the El Dau building, located on Avenida Diagonal in the Catalan capital, which is home to the Pedralbes Centre shopping arcade. The property is owned by the real estate firm Inmobiliaria Colonial.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cataluña’s High Court Cancels Moratorium On New Hotels In Ciutat Vella

4 October 2017 – Inmodiario

Section 3 of the Administrative Chamber of the High Court of Justice in Cataluña has upheld the appeal submitted against the approval of the agreement by the Town Hall of Barcelona of the Modification of the Special Plan for public establishments, hotels and other activities in Ciutat Vella and has annulled the obligation to obtain the withdrawal of one or more existing hotel licences equal in number to or exceeding the new hotel activity.

The legislation was approved by the CiU municipal government in July 2013 with the support of the PP. The aim, as the Town Hall explains in its argument against the appeal, was to maintain hotel beds, but relocate them within the district, to avoid over-concentration in specific areas.

The Town Hall alleges that the modification to the special plan for public establishments, hotels and other activities, whose articles 14 and 20 the TSJC has now annulled, is governed by urban planning criteria and not by economic or tourism policies, with the aim of achieving a better relationship between visitors and the resident population.

For the complainant, which owns several properties that it purchased to operate as hotels, the obligation to “withdraw” a number of licences equal to or exceeding the volume of the new hotel activity makes the implementation of these tourist establishments “prohibitive and unfeasible economically”.

In its opinion, the legislation affects the sphere of private relations and creates a “market for licences”, an argument that the court agrees with. The court highlights that it already annulled a similar ruling from 2010, which talked about the “renouncing” of licences rather than their “withdrawal”.

For TSJC, this change in nomenclature means “coining” a new term, which stands out due to its “vulgarity” and also generates “clear legal uncertainty”, since, in reality, it is a “non-specific legal term that is completely inscrutable”.

According to the court, the “poorly named withdrawal” continues to be just as illegal as the “renouncement”, and will only end up “making the market for licences more endogamic, if that’s possible”. That is because, according to the annulled regulations, someone can only access a hotel licence if they previously held one, which “drives a parallel and artificial market of licences and ownerships”, says the court.

Original story: Inmodiario

Translation: Carmel Drake

Airbnb Pulls 1,000 Listings From Barcelona In The Wake Of Fraud Claims

10 July 2017 – El País

On Tuesday, Airbnb, the short-term home rental site, announced that it has taken down 1,000 listings in Barcelona’s downtown district of Ciutat Vella over the last week. The move comes just days after news emerged about cases of fraud involving homes listed on the popular vacation rental website.

It is also a follow-up to a pledge made by company officials in February, when they said they would introduce a one-host, one-home policy in a part of the city that is under increasing pressure from high levels of tourism. The gesture, meant to reduce the supply of short-term rentals in the area, was also viewed as an olive branch for Barcelona city authorities, who have been critical of Airbnb’s practices.

Back then, Mayor Ada Colau dismissed the gesture as “a joke” and said that what the city wants is for Airbnb to pull all the illegal listings from its site. Local authorities note that tourist apartments require a special license to operate as such, known as HUT under its Catalan acronym.

Now, Airbnb has released an open letter to Barcelona City Hall entitled: “Here’s why City Hall is wrong to turn its back on local families who share their homes.”

“Airbnb wants to be regulated in Barcelona, and we have zero tolerance for bad actors,” states the message. “We want to work with City Hall to clamp down on business operators who break the rules, while protecting local families who share their homes to boost their income and support their families.”

The letter is signed by Sergio Vinay, of the company’s public policy department, which is in charge of negotiating with local and regional authorities.

“In Barcelona, this guiding principle hits a roadblock. Unlike other major cities across the world, Barcelona has no rules for local families who occasionally share their homes,” the letter goes on to say. These rules are currently being worked out at the regional level.

“In the absence of such a collaboration, Airbnb has already taken steps to tackle issues facing Barcelona,” says Vinay in the letter. “In the last week alone, Airbnb has removed more than 1,000 listings that could affect long-term housing availability, as part of our ‘One Host, One Home’ policy. For context, that’s almost double the number of tourist dwellings that have ceased to operate following City Hall action.”

Vinay also takes issue with City Hall urban planning official Janet Sanz, who has been critical of Airbnb: “Janet Sanz is wrong to say that City Hall ‘is not fighting home sharing’ or local families who share their homes. It is – and by choosing to promote a campaign of fear and confusion over workable solutions, it’s local families who stand to lose most.”

The San Francisco-based firm claims that the average Airbnb host in Barcelona is a homeowner who makes an extra income of €5,500 a year on average for “sharing their home” around 70 nights a year. “More than two-thirds of hosts say they share their primary residence and almost a quarter say that sharing their home has helped them avoid eviction or foreclosure.”

Last month, it emerged that a Barcelona woman had rented out her apartment to a long-term tenant, who then illegally listed it on Airbnb and began subletting it. Unable to reach her tenant, the woman was forced to rent out her own place through Airbnb, at which time she changed the lock and reported the case to the authorities.

Original story: El País (by Clara Blanchar)

Translation: Carmel Drake