Tag: public housing stock

Colau to Force 30% of New Build Homes to be Allocated to Social Housing

13 June 2018 – La Vanguardia

The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, is going to force house builders that are constructing new homes or undertaking major renovation projects in the Catalan capital to allocate 30% of their buildings to social housing. This proposal from the Government’s team will be taken to the municipal plenary at the end of this month and threatens to generate a fierce legal battle between property developers and the Town Hall. The legal consequences are expected to be even more profound than those brought about by the Special Urban Plan for Tourist Accommodation (Peuat), which has been the subject of more than one hundred appeals.

The initiative proposes two modifications to the existing General Metropolitan Plan (PGM), which will need agreement from the municipal groups if they are to be approved initially. One of them establishes the bases to oblige private property developers to contribute to the creation of social housing. The other involves extending the Town Hall’s right of first refusal across the whole city, in such a way that the administration will have preferential rights for the acquisition of estates in all sale and purchase transactions.

This proposal can be traced back to a requirement launched a few months ago by the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), which demanded that the Town Hall apply this percentage – 30% – to property developers in an obligatory to expand the public stock of housing. Ada Colau, who in February hired Carlos Macías, one of the spokesmen for the PAH, as an advisor, is hereby looking to satisfy that entity, for which she used to work as an activist and which has openly criticised her housing policies on more than one occasion.

Nevertheless, the urban modification project, which the BComú government has forged with the utmost secrecy and without the involvement of any trade associations or other affected agents, has infuriated the sector, which warns of the dangerous effects that this measure may generate. They include the risk of paralysing real estate activity at a time of recovery and the consequent legal battle to annul these plans.

The document, prepared by municipal experts in collaboration with Barcelona Regional, has been sent to municipal groups to start conversations and try to make progress in a meeting today towards its approval by the Urban Planning Committee next week. After overcoming that process, if the first obstacle is indeed overcome, the proposal will be discussed in the plenary. Even so, it still has a long way to go before it could come into force.

The modification would affect all new build or major renovation projects that have an urbanistic housing roof (surface area) of more than 600 m2, in practice, the vast majority of real estate developments in the city. According to the document, they would be obliged to “allocate at least 30% of those roofs to public housing”. The properties could be sold or leased but must be located in the same building (…). If the proposal goes ahead and overcomes all of the legal processes, it will become normal for residents of luxury homes in the city to live alongside residents of social housing properties (…).

If the current rate of construction in Barcelona continues over the next few years, if Ada Colau’s government manages to push through her proposal and if the inevitable legal appeals rule in favour of the Town Hall, then the initiative to allocate 30% of new build homes to social housing could increase the city’s public housing stock by 400 units per year. In 2017, 1,373 new homes were started in the Catalan capital (…).

Original story: La Vanguardia (by Silvia Angulo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Five Offers Submitted for c/Ramón Carande Plot in Sevilla

27 November 2017 – Diario Sevilla

The offers that have been presented by the five business groups that are participating in the exchange of the plot located on Ramón Carande, tendered by the Municipal Housing Company of Sevilla (Emvisesa), range between €7,010,000 and €9,926,094, including cash, land and finished homes.

On this plot, which is worth €7 million and which had space for the construction of just 68 homes initially, Juan Espadas has decided to exchange the land for development (…) with the aim of building 400 homes.

In this way, according to municipal sources, the envelopes containing the economic offers presented by the bidders have now been opened by the ‘Cesa de Contratación’. At the event, which was very well attended, representatives from the five bidding entities were present, including from Inmobiliaria del Sur SA, Abu Capital 2000 SL, Vía Celere Desarrollos Inmobiliarios SA, Salvo Global Property SL and Urbanismo y Promoción Meridional SL, as well as the managers of Gaesco and Inmobiliaria Viapol SA.

The values of the economic offers from the companies range between €7,010,000 and €9,926,094. Moreover, the valuation includes cash, land and finished homes that Emvisesa will receive in exchange for the land on Ramón Carande.

In this context, of the technical and urban planning documentation relating to these properties, the appraisal and report have been submitted to Emvisesa’s technical services for analysis, prior to the award, in accordance with the tender document that governs the procedure.

The aim of this exchange operation is that the sum of the homes obtained through this triple route allows the number of homes in the public stock to be increased by more than 400, whereby multiplying the number of dwellings authorised for the plot on Ramón Carande by six. Moreover, given that some of these 400 homes are already finished, Emvisesa should have a reasonable number of homes available immediately.

Original story: Diario Sevilla

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sevilla’s Municipal Gov’t To Boost Social Housing Stock By 1,000 Over 3 Years

5 October 2017 – Emvisesa

Last week, the mayor of Sevilla, Juan Espadas, together with the delegate for Social Welfare and Employment, Juan Manuel Flores, and the manager of Emvisesa, Felipe Castro, presented the “Strategy for the urgent expansion of the public housing stock (for Sevilla)”, which is aimed at securing at least 1,000 extra homes for rent over the next three years.

These actions will be carried out immediately, whilst the new Municipal Housing Plan for 2018-2024 is being finalised (…).

“We find ourselves with a dismantled Housing Company and an abolished Housing Plan, without any alternatives. We have worked for two years to take different measures and now we are advancing with a housing strategy for Sevilla for the next eight or nine years”, explained the mayor of Sevilla, Juan Espadas.

In this way, the Housing Company, together with the department for Social Welfare and Employment and the Urban Planning team, has designed some immediate steps to expand the stock of public rental homes by 1,000 units over the next three years. This is expected to involve a global budget of around €100 million.

First of all, the Program will be developed through rental housing initiatives (the current tender will be strengthened) and house purchases (a new tender will be held soon). The hope is to obtain around 470 homes through this route.

Secondly, the envelopes for the tender of the Ramón Carande plot will be opened in October. The plan is to obtain resources, land and homes relating to 400 properties in this way in total.

Thirdly, properties owned by the Town Hall and land owned by the Municipal Land Company have been identified for the construction of 520 homes on land in the following areas: Sur, Torreblanca, Macarena, Norte and Carretera de Carmona. Almost all of these sites are available for construction work to be started in the short term.

Financing

To finance this whole operation, as well as resorting to typical bank loans, like for the construction of any other of housing development, the Town Hall of Sevilla is going to make contributions and 230 homes are going to be built, within the same Program, which will go up for sale.

In this way, although 1,215 homes will be constructed in total, 230 will be sold (whereby responding to the demand from 40% of the applicants on the public housing register) to contribute to the financing of the operation as a whole (…).

The strategy will be presented during the first half of October to Emvisesa’s Board of Directors; it will be enriched with any constructive and positive proposals presented; and it will be boosted to begin construction of the homes and the programs to acquire homes in the short term.

Original story: Emvisesa

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb Plans To Return €6,000M To Its Shareholders

16 June 2016 – Expansión

Sareb has a business plan on the table that involves returning its shareholders all of their investments, including an annualised return of between 1% and 2%. According to the explanation provided yesterday by the Chairman of the company, Jaime Echegoyen, these plans involve paying back €6,000 million to the banks and insurance companies that hold its share capital, together with the Fund for Restructuring (the Frob).

Between 2012 and 2013, those shareholders invested €4,800 million in Sareb – €1,200 million in share capital and €3,600 million in subordinated debt. The investors have already written off around three quarters of that amount.

Echegoyen, who was speaking yesterday at an event organised by UIMP, Apie and BBVA, did not specify whether the €6,000 million would be returned in cash or by handing over assets that the bad bank has not been able to sell by the time it has to be wound up, November 2027.

The Chairman of Sareb praised the role of the entities that supported the creation of the company, all of the major banks with the exception of BBVA. (…). The company’s most senior executive said that it was “time to help the whole country” (…).

Podemos’ plans

Echegoyen also made reference to the possibility that Sareb may be converted into a public housing stock, as proposed by (the political party) Podemos, something that in his opinion would have serious consequences for the Spanish economy.

“I don’t think we should forget that Sareb owes €43,000 million. If anyone wants to do anyhing with Sareb, they would have to deal with Parliament first and then Brussels”, he explained, before adding that “those €43,000 million would mean raising the deficit by 4 percentage points”.

Meanwhile, Sareb’s Chairman reported that the company has now sold 35,000 properties since it was created, although the rate of sales has decelerated slightly in 2016, to 25 homes per day, compared with the average of 27 since 2013. Despite that, he said that “we are performing in line with budget” and he maintained the goal to “stop losing money in 2017”.

This slight slowdown has happened despite the fact that the real estate market is experiencing a “sweet moment”, according to Echegoyen. This is reflected by the fact that new, more conservative, investors, “such as Socimis, family offices, insurance companies and private banks have covered the gap left by the opportunists”.

The importance of property

According to the executive, low interest rates are encouraging investors to pay attention to real estate assets. “Property is intrinsic to human beings, above all Spaniards”, he said. “Banks are still granting finance, but are no longer allowing any nonsense”, he added.

The Chairman of Sareb acknowledges that competition is being felt from other banks when it comes to selling properties, although he pointed out that the financial institutions are in more of a hurry to sell given the pressures (they face) from the stock market and capital requirements.

“We have time, a trump card, on our side, which lasts for the next 12 years. Furthermore, we are never going to be listed on the stock exchange, which means that we are not subject to pressure from the financial markets”, he noted.

Original story: Expansión (by J. Z. and S. A.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colau Warns Of RE Bubble Danger In Barcelona

3 March 2016 – Público

The mayoress of Barcelona, Ada Colau, has warned about the imminent “danger of a real estate bubble” in the city, driven by an increase in the price of rental housing since 2014-2015.

The town hall has submitted a report about the increase in rental prices in Barcleona, whose results show an increase of more than 6% in rental housing across the city as a whole, especially where tourism is most concentrated. The neighbourhoods most affected by the rises are Les Corts (8.7%), Sant Martí (8.6%), Sarrià-Sant Gervasi (6.9%) and Eixample (6.7%). “Rental prices in Barcelona have risen by more than in any other city in Spain”, she said.

In light of this increase, the mayoress has asked both the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Spanish State to act to limit future rental price rises, especially in areas where tourism demand is the highest, and to modify housing regulations to “avoid a new speculative cycle”. “We want to raise the alarm because the housing laws have not been modified and that is facilitating new speculation about the housing market, which means that rental prices are increasing in areas where income levels have not improved”, she said at a press conference.

Colau made reference to Germany as an example of good practice in the protection of the right to housing, given that there, the “State allows limits to be placed on rental prices”, depending on the income levels in the areas where prices are on the rise. “We urge the relevant authorities, at both the Catalan and Spanish level, to follow the European example regarding limitations on rental prices in places where there is significant residential demand”, she said.

The mayoress also acknowledged that progress has been made in the battle against evictions and the increase in rental housing in Catalunya, thanks to the approval of law 24 2015, by popular initiative. But, according to Colau, this regulation still needs to be applied to “put an end to mortgage foreclosures and to put a stop to the speculation”. Even so, she considers that “collaboration with the State is necessary” and she took the opportunity to denounce the limited profile the housing crisis is having in the investiture debate.

The mayoress and the councillor for housing, Josep Maria Montaner, announced that the Town Hall has increased the number of homes in the city’s public housing stock by 255, thanks to acquisitions from financial institutions. It is the second batch of homes that the banks have transferred or sold to the town hall, below market value, to increase the city’s pool of rental housing and to resolve the social emergency. Specifically, 50 flats have been transferred in 8 years, 131 homes have been purchased below the market price and the right of first refusal has been granted on another 28 homes.

With these, the municipal government has now obtained 455 homes from the banks for inclusion in the public housing stock, during the course of its mandate (in addition to the 200 granted by Sareb and the 50 from CaixaBank). (…).

Original story: Público (by Laura Safont)

Translation: Carmel Drake