The president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has called this Friday for a great state pact to improve access to housing and has insisted that small property owners should not be criminalized.
In statements to the media, the head of the regional Executive has considered that it is "healthy and democratic" for citizens to take to the streets to show their discontent for not being able to buy or rent a home, as it is a problem that causes "frustration" and "anger" among the population.
Clavijo has pointed out that numerous couples with stable jobs still cannot emancipate themselves because the cost of buying or renting a house consumes nearly 50% of their income. Therefore, he has emphasized that administrations have the obligation to listen to these demands, implement effective measures, and strengthen institutional cooperation to promote the construction of new developments.
At the same time, he has asked for "caution" when analyzing the role of property owners in the housing market and has rejected the idea of classifying them into "good and bad" categories.
In the Canary Islands, 95% are small property owners
In this context, the president has detailed that 95% of property owners in the Canary Islands are small owners who have one or two properties, and he has demanded that they not be placed on the same level as investment funds that buy houses with a strictly speculative objective.
"The small property owner, the taxi driver who has been self-employed all his life and who may have been able to invest with great effort some savings in having an apartment to supplement a retirement pension, is not a vulture fund, is not a speculator," he has stated.
In this regard, he has admitted that there are indeed funds that acquire homes for less than 70% of their value and companies that buy complete developments to evict those who inhabit them and revalue the assets, against which, he has pointed out, it is necessary to articulate specific responses.
For this reason, the president has once again proposed a state pact that includes changes to the Urban Leasing Law and land regulations, in addition to measures that allow for the acceleration of urban planning license processing, including the use of positive administrative silence in certain cases.
Finally, Clavijo has maintained that these reforms must be addressed in an environment of serenity, consensus, and unity, although he has admitted that, in the current situation, it does not seem to be the most favorable scenario to achieve it.