Through the Municipal Institute of Housing and Renovation (IMHAB), the Barcelona City Council is working to increase its public housing offer through various mechanisms which include new builds, the acquisition of properties and the mobilisation of properties in the private market to be made available as affordable rents. These are key strategies in the city’s neighbourhoods where public land is scarce. The council has bought a property on Carrer Camprodon in the Gràcia district. A meeting was held yesterday with the neighbours of the building, attended by the Housing and Renovation councillor, Lucía Martín, to explain to them the conditions and the management of the change of ownership.
The building in Carrer Camprodon, in the Gràcia district, has a ground floor, five floors and a loft with one home on each floor. The ground floor is used for business premises, and of the six homes, three of them are empty.
More than 1000 properties acquired since 2015
From 2015 until the end of 2021 the City Council has purchased more than 1000 properties. 382 of them have been acquired in the last year, making it a record year in this matter. These purchases represent nearly 60 million euros being spent.
The majority of these 369 properties correspond to 13 entire buildings located in particularly pressured areas such as Gràcia and Eixample. In Gràcia, two buildings have been purchased which include 17 homes. The City Council has decided to intensify the exercising of the rights of first refusal and withdrawal as a tool to prevent speculative processes and increase the affordable housing offer in central districts where the rise in rental prices is seen most, and where there is a lack of land for new developments.