The mayor of Córdoba, the 'popular' José María Bellido, and the socialist mayoress of A Coruña, Inés Rey, have clashed this Thursday in the Senate by presenting their strategies to address the housing crisis. The former has defended the simplification of procedures and the increase in supply, while the latter has opted for market intervention and rent regulation.
Both municipal officials have spoken before the General Commission of Local Entities of the Upper House, where they have agreed in demanding a greater commitment from public administrations to facilitate access to housing. However, they have shown deep disagreements on the scope of regulation, the role of public-private collaboration, and the application of stressed areas provided for in the State Housing Law.
While Bellido has advocated for streamlining urban planning permits, relaxing regulations, and putting more land into circulation to increase affordable housing, Rey has defended greater public intervention in the rental market and has highlighted the "positive" effects of declaring A Coruña a stressed residential market area.
Along these lines, the socialist mayoress has stated that, since the implementation of this measure, rental prices in A Coruña have fallen by 8.4 percent since the "peak" of June last year, in contrast to the increases recorded in other Galician cities without this classification. "The problem is not intervening, it is not acting," she remarked.
Córdoba: less bureaucracy and more legal certainty
For his part, Bellido has warned that one of the major obstacles is that urban bureaucracy delays the incorporation of new homes into the market for years and has called for "administrative simplification" that accelerates both urban developments and the granting of permits.
"Bureaucracy makes projects more expensive, delays the arrival of housing to the market, and ends up decreasing supply and increasing housing prices," argued the mayor of Córdoba.
He also called for "stable" regulatory frameworks and a reduction in sectoral reports from other administrations that, in his opinion, block the approval of urban plans and delay the creation of new neighborhoods.
Bellido has also opted to strengthen public-private collaboration to streamline procedures through collaborating urban development entities and professional associations, in addition to moving towards basic licenses and "urbanistic fast track" formulas.
At the same time, the mayor of Cordoba has stressed that the housing problem is not limited to building new developments, but also includes the regeneration of already consolidated neighborhoods and the rehabilitation of aging buildings.
A Coruña: defense of tense areas and control of tourist flats
In contrast, Rey has defended the State Housing Law and the tools for public intervention in the market, insisting that housing "is a constitutional right and not a commodity for speculation."
The mayor has indicated that the declaration of A Coruña as a tense residential market area has contributed to lowering the average rental price from 771 euros in June 2025 to 706 euros recorded in March 2026.
As she detailed, while A Coruña managed to reduce rents, other Galician cities without tense areas experienced increases of up to 9.7 percent. "The market does not self-regulate," she stated.
Furthermore, Rey has defended the regulation of tourist homes to prevent them from reducing the supply of residential housing. In this regard, she explained that A Coruña has restricted these accommodations to entire buildings, ground floors, and first floors, which, as she pointed out, has allowed homes previously intended for tourism to return to the rental market.
Feijóo in the Xunta: a period of "drought" in public housing
Finally, and in response to criticism from the 'popular' party, the mayor of A Coruña has lashed out at the housing policies applied for years by the Xunta de Galicia and has accused the PP of having maintained a period of "drought" in terms of public housing.
In this regard, she assured that during the terms of the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, no public housing was delivered in A Coruña, despite there being thousands of applicants registered during his time as president of the Xunta between 2009 and 2022.