“We are not going to stop until we find a solution to the housing“. That is the slogan that the socialists have been repeating since the beginning of the legislature and that will be one of the main axes of the Federal Congress of the party to be held in Seville between November 29 and December 1. The dilemma is how to achieve this objective, something that is not solved by the framework paper of the PSOEwhich will be the guiding and discursive thread of the conclave.
In the text there is a point that contrasts with what the party has been defending, which now proposes to make it possible “legally” for the municipalities and not the communities to establish the tensioned zones. However, jurists consulted by 20minutos already advance that this measure could be “unconstitutional” and could be annulled if an autonomous community appeals to the Court of Guarantees..
The PSOE does not clarify what legal modifications it intends to make so that this autonomic competence becomes municipal, although it reaffirms its objective. They give as an example the communities that, for the moment, have implemented declarations of tensioned zones, Catalonia and the Basque Country, none of them governed by the PP. “If the PP does not do its job, we will do it”.Ferraz sources assert. However, the formula to do that “job” seems much more complicated than a declaration of intentions.
The tensioned zones are the star measure of the HOUSING LAWThe law allows for a series of extraordinary mechanisms to be deployed where prices are particularly high. Specifically, it allows the state reference price index to be applied as a ceiling to new rental contracts -it offers a maximum and minimum range of prices depending on the area and the characteristics of each home-, as long as it is an apartment owned by a large tenant or being rented for the first time in five years.
It also opens the door to implementing tax bonuses for landlords of 50% if they rent their property as their habitual residence, 60% if they rehabilitate it, 70% if the tenant is under 35 years of age or is vulnerable, and 90% if they reduce the rent by more than 5% with respect to the last contract, once the corresponding annual update has been applied.
This mechanism is designed for neighborhoods and municipalities where residents spend more than 30% of their income on rent or mortgage payments -including basic supplies- or where the price of housing has increased at least three points above the CPI in the last five years.
A regional decision
The law passed in the last legislature establishes that the autonomous communities are the ones who have the capacity to request to the Ministry of Housing the declaration of a stressed area in those points of its territory that are in this situation. Upon receipt of the request, which must be accompanied by a plan of measures to deal with the problem, the department of Isabel Rodríguez approves the measures and approves the declaration, which becomes effective as soon as it is published in the BOE.
For the time being, the tensioned zones are only active in Catalonia. The community currently presided over by Salvador Illa has 271 municipalities recognized as such -which account for 90% of the Catalan population-, after the beginning of October the initial declaration was extended approved in March. Just one month ago, the Basque Country declared Errenteria as a tensioned zone.although the recognition is still pending state approval. The Basque Government plans to extend the declaration to seven more municipalities, including provincial capitals. Navarra has also started the process this week to activate this mechanism in 21 municipalities and Asturias is working to apply it in two neighborhoods of Gijón. Castilla-La Mancha would thus be the only socialist community that has not made a move.
In the rest of Spain, there are municipalities that have asked their communities for recognition as a tensioned zone, although to no avail. This is the case, for example, of Fuenlabrada, Alcorcón, Getafe and Rivas in Madrid. The communities governed by the PP flatly reject this measure, considering that the price control would result in less supply and higher rents.
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They see it as an attempt to interfere in their competences and remind that the declaration of stressed areas is not mandatory, while rejecting that the ministry is trying to pressure them by threatening to less funding for those who do not apply the mechanism foreseen in the housing law. Rodriguez has repeatedly stressed that, under the housing law, the State will reward with “extraordinary funds” the autonomous regions that take the step.
There is “invasion of competences”.
The Socialist Party wants to try by all means that the tensioned zones are declared throughout Spain, but the PP has enormous territorial power and is determined to hinder the socialist strategy. The measure proposed by the PSOE to avoid these pitfalls could be legally unfeasible, according to legal sources consulted by this newspaper. Some even venture to point out that “if the measure were to be implemented through a state law, probably would end up being appealed by an autonomous community and would be declared unconstitutional. for encroachment of competences”.
“We will make it legally possible for the municipalities to establish the definition of the tensioned zone”, explains the PSOE’s framework paper, without further detail. But the competences to do so belong to the autonomous communities, as recognized in the Constitution itself. Article 148 of the Magna Carta states that “the autonomous communities may assume competences” of “land use planning, urban planning and housing”. It is the statutes of the autonomous communities that state that the competence in these matters is “exclusive”..
The sources consulted by 20minutos They point out that the housing law gives the power to “the competent administrations” to declare stressed areas. For this reason, they point out that it would be possible to cede this competence to the municipalities, but it would have to be through a law approved by the corresponding autonomous community. If it is done through a state law, “it would be invading the autonomous competences”, which makes it unfeasible for the rule to pass the filter of the Constitutional Court. “It is impossible, the proposal is a toast to the sun“explains one of the jurists consulted.
Another explains that “in housing matters, principles such as property, the right to decent housing… come into play, and therefore may touch on aspects that fall within the competence of the State”. The jurist emphasizes that, although article 148 of the Constitution empowers the communities to assume housing competences, article 149 empowers the State to regulate “the basic conditions that guarantee the equality of all Spaniards in the exercise of their rights”. However, in the face of this conflict of competences, he concludes that “subject to seeing how the measure is implemented”, there are clear problems of its viability“.