Government to launch tender on empty land to build social housing across Catalonia

The Catalan government will launch a public tender to build social housing with accessible rents on empty land ceded by several city councils across the territory.

President Salvador Illa, accompanied by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, visited Sant Boi de Llobregat and announced that the tender would include several measures to speed up paperwork and construction. 

"Our goal is to build more houses and faster," Illa said after announcing these "exceptional" measures to tackle housing, which is currently one of the most challenging issues across Catalonia.

"We are going on the right path and working together," Illa told reporters before adding that "when you work this way, positive outcome multiplies."

Meanwhile, Sánchez praised Catalonia's housing policies, stating that the Spanish Housing Law "works wherever it is enforced."

"We must enforce the law, and we cannot accept any boycott from other offices' legislations," he said in a reference to regional governments led by conservative People's Party leaders.

Both Catalan and Spanish governments are led by Socialists, with Illa being the former health minister to Sánchez during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Both Illa and Sánchez, accompanied by Spain's housing minister Isabel Rodríguez, visited 40 new official protection houses for youngsters in the Sant Boi de Llobregat municipality, just south of Barcelona.

During the event, both politicians talked about the regional government's plan to build 50,000 public houses by 2030.

Despite politicians' efforts to promote public housing, earlier this week, housing platform Idealista reported that 20% of Barcelona's flats on rent lasted less than 24 hours in the market.