The announcement of the creation of a Ministry of Housing, separate from Transport, was a declaration of intentions by the President of the Government in the new legislature. At the head of the Ministry, Pedro Sánchez placed the former spokesperson of the Executive, Isabel Rodriguezwho will have David Lucas as second sword, from the position of Secretary of State.
Lucas repeats the position he took over to replace Isabel Pardo de Vera, after being forced to resign due to the Asturias and Cantabria train scandal. The Secretary of State took up his position for the first time just a few months ago, as did Iñaqui Carnicero, who repeats as Secretary General of Urban Agenda. No one is aware that both They are of the utmost confidence of Pedro Sánchez, according to the sources consulted.
As soon as he took up his position, David Lucas received what has been one of the main tasks of the last legislature: negotiate and approve the Housing Law, which ended up seeing the light in May. The Secretary of State had to negotiate with the leftmost wing of the Government, represented by Podemos, which demanded that the processing of the regulation of the residential market be resumed.
According to business sources, the Housing Law which was finally approved It was never to David Lucas’ taste, who was forced to carry it out to fulfill one of the main electoral promises of the coalition government. Lucas served as counterweight with EH Bildu, ERC and Podemoswhich demanded greater interventionism.
Along these lines, in her first speech, Isabel Rodríguez gave some clues about the political line of the recently created Ministry, which There will be no excessive interventionism that could call into question private property. “I also want to have a message of tranquility and hope, of sensitivity, with small landowners,” she said. This message was harshly criticized by the parties further to the left of the PSOE.
Housing policy without major powers
In recent weeks, the real estate sector has been living with the uncertainty of what the role of the newly created Ministry of Housing will be. This organism It barely has powers because they are delegated in the autonomous communities and in the town councils. A change in market regulation, which has only just been in force for six months, does not seem to be on the table either.
The new Executive Yes, you could try to regulate tourist or temporary accommodation, whose operation is excluded in the Housing Law. Although the competition is local and regional, like housing in general, the Ministry could embark on drafting new state regulations that serve as a framework for the rest of the administrations.
What the Ministry will have to work on will be to finish outlining the final details of this Housing Law: it will have to approve the index to which the rents will be referenced from 2025 and process the request for stressed areas of those communities that request it. For now, only Catalonia wants to apply this last mechanism. Apparently, not many more regions will request it: the regions of the PP They already announced that they will not apply it.
The fact that the new Executive has an agency specialized in housing will serve to politically confront the PP administrations. For example, the policy on which the most emphasis will be placed in the Community of Madrid, in the next four years, will be housing. Isabel Díaz-Ayuso herself, during the pre-campaign for the regional elections, assured that “this will be the housing legislature.”
20% of the public park, the great promise
The campaign promise that the new Ministry of Housing will be able to advance is to ensure that the 20% of the Spanish housing stock is public. At the moment, the Executive has in progress a total of 183,000 homesalthough less than 70,000 are mobilized, among which the Sarebthe Social Housing Fund or those that are financed through the Official Credit Institute (ICO).
Sepes, the state land entity, must continue with the urban processing of the land that the Ministry of Defense has sold and will continue to sell to the new Housing portfolio. A part of these plots are finalists and will soon be able to be loaded, but the majority are land under management, which must pass each of the urban milestones. The public company has almost the start-up of 40,000 residential properties in the coming years.
The future of the young rental voucherthe aid for purchasing homes announced in the regional election campaign or the aid and subsidies to improve energy efficiency of the existing housing stock.