The time for warnings is over. A year and a half after the Santiago City Council regulated the existence of tourist accommodation (VUT), banning them in a large part of the city, the City Council has taken measures in this matter to prevent the activity that some of these accommodations maintained. The first effective seals took place last Tuesday, when three of these businesses located in the same building in the monumental zone were closed. The measure surprised many owners: in the Galician capital, there were More than 800 properties registered in the Xunta registry— who not only face the closure of their homes, but also fines of up to 10,000 euros, or even cuts in their supply. Regarding the controversy, the councilor for urban planning, Iago Lestegás (BNG), said that Raxoi “will enforce the regulations” and encouraged those who have not yet done so to lower the blinds permanently under the threat that “any house that has an order to cease the activity not carried out in Santiago can be sealed. The reaction of those affected, more than 600 people among whom those who meet the new requirements imposed by the council, was immediate.
In statements to ABC, Aviturga’s spokesman in Santiago, Óscar Soneira, wondered what criteria the municipality uses to send the famous request to cease activity. “The city council has sent 220 cessations of activity and there are 810 VUT registered in the Xunta“began the owner, who complains that there was never a plan to inspect all the tourist apartments that did not have authorization from the Galician government and that, however, had been operating without problems in the city for years. “The fact is that now the cessation orders are accompanied by a preventive suspension of the activity in five days, which implies that even if you make allegations, you have to close,” explains Soneira about the measure.
In the eye of the hurricane is the urban plan approved in February 2023 by the socialist government of Xosé Sánchez Bugallo, which, when voted on in plenary session, did not seem to please the current mayor. At that time, the modification that vetoed the VUT in the city’s almond and limited it to the low and first in the new area took place thanks to the votes in favor of the PSOE and Compostela Aberta, with the strike (in the past) BNG abstention and the vote against the PP. However – and despite the more or less veiled promises that some owners made it ugly – the Goretti Sanmartín executive did not regulate, after coming to power, the houses that were operating before the approval of the new text and that were registered in the regional registry.
legal battle
“The plan is appealed to the court because we find it ridiculous,” says Soneira about the document of discord. According to him, the new ordinance does not regulate pre-existing uses (i.e. those that were operating before the modification) as indicated in one of the articles of the PXOM. In addition, they censor, “regulates the rental of tourist rooms, which is illegal in Galicia.” Those affected by the mass closures of the VUTs also complain that the sixty-day rent provided for in the new standard is not yet applicable and recall, in the face of the offensive launched by the City Council of Compostela, that the new ordinance still requires final approval after the end of the period of allegations. “Aviturga and many owners have argued this, also requesting an individualized and motivated response,” they detail.
The clash over the future of hundreds of VUTs has set the pace this week in the city and forced local officials to demonstrate on several occasions. Your roadmap, invariable. In a statement this Friday, the councilor of the sector insisted that any tourist apartment that operates in violation of the regulations must cease its activity “without waiting for the municipality to order it, as is the case with any other activity.” The reality is that it was only between July and August of this year that the Santiago City Council ordered the suspension of the use of more than 220 illegal tourist apartments. “We will continue to act, using all the tools that the law puts at our disposal, not only the seals but also the coercive fines, which are another mechanism of forced execution, and The law also provides that the suspension of water and electricity supplies may be ordered.“The urban planning officer wanted to highlight the situation in which hundreds of owners find themselves, who are waiting for a legal response to know the future of their businesses.
Few apartments and just as expensive
The aim of limiting tourist apartments, Raxoi has been justifying for months, is to solve the housing problem that the capital is suffering from. With rents skyrocketing not only within the municipal limits but throughout the metropolitan area, the idea was that a good part of the properties dedicated to tourist rental would return, after the veto, to the traditional rental pool. But for now, and given the figures presented, this is not the case. There are no more rental properties in the capital and prices have not fallen.
The Galician capital now has around 225 rental properties,the same as a year ago and two years ago, but with higher prices“, denounces the Galician Federation of Real Estate Companies on the reality of the Galician city. “The effect of the VUT veto on the rental market is zero. People who stopped renting it as a tourist property closed it or put it up for sale,” Fegein has been warning for some time, who believes that the solution to the housing bottleneck in Santiago is to build more social housing and provide tax incentives to owners. With 7,000 empty homes in the municipality, they complain, closing 600 apartments is ineffective.
