The use of justice to stop real estate developments is an increasingly frequent phenomenon. It is sometimes used by social or neighborhood entities to avoid what they consider to be environmental or urban planning abuses, protected by a lax standard which, they say, always benefits developers. They, for their part, defend an activity which now appears vital as a possible solution to the growing problem of access to housing, and in which they risk their capital.
The developers, through the Association of Real Estate Developers of Madrid (Asprima), opened the door denouncing the paralysis of a thousand homess, including 300 public, in the Montegancedo area (Pozuelo de Alarcón). They regretted that after more than twenty years of treatment, this urban area was suspended in July by court decision due to a lawsuit filed in 2022, when the urbanization of the area had already begun. The case is on appeal before the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid.
“This is why housing policies do not work, and this is why the current supply is much lower than the needs of society,” explains Jorge Ginés, general director of Asprima. His organization watched with despair as the new district of Montegancedo was temporarily paralyzed “sine die” by court decision. “At a time when it is urgent to offer apartments, it is too easy to resort to a single territory and paralyze it.” And to conclude: “With this legal uncertainty, it will be impossible to put an end to the housing problem in Spain.”
But the vision is very different for citizen entities: the Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations recognizes that over the last two decades town planning has become very judicialized, but it understands it as the only weapon it has to avoid what she considers “the liberality with which the norm is interpreted.
The general director of Asprima recalls that the construction process of an urban development involves “various filters” and validations. “The fact that a complaint like Montegancedo’s is accepted for processing while it is already in the process of urbanization goes against what we need, which is housing, and quickly.” For this reason, he believes that “this type of complaints and actions should be limited in time.”
This is not an isolated case: Asprima recalls other urban developments which have come up against the courts. “Los Carriles, in Alcobendas: the partial plan is approved in 2019 and in 2022 there is a ruling from the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid” which admits certain claims from environmental groups. For them, the area is the last undeveloped natural space in Alcobendas, on which It is planned to build 8,600 housing units, half of which will be protected.
houses
This is the deficit that they calculate at Asprima at the national level
The partial plan that established the organization of this territory was approved in 2019 with the votes of the PP and two councilors of Ciudadanos who ignored electoral discipline. The TSJM ruling of 2022 declared the plan void. The Municipal Council approved in parallel another partial plan (in June 2024) and the consolidation based on the partial plan canceled by decree.
Jorge Ginés is convinced that it is these delays that really increase the price of land. In San Sebastián de los Reyes, an appeal to the courts of the previous local government has paralyzed the construction of 600 housing units under the Plan Vive, until a decision of the TSMJ renders the appeal inadmissible. And remember that “Valdebebas has experienced up to four stops, due to admission to the appeal procedure, the last with the houses about to be handed over; something crazy and Kafkaesque. Ginés doesn’t believe that zones “cripple them as a sport, but it’s very easy; “The judge must admit him to treatment, unless there is a law.”
Close to governments
To prevent these situations from recurring, Asprima recommends “putting an end to this” and proposing that “the law on legal security, both that of the PSOE and that of the PP, be approved, because they are equal; “Anyone would put an end to this.” In May, an attempt was made to approve it, but it was ultimately withdrawn “due to political tactics,” he says.
Their approaches are refuted by the head of urban planning of the Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations (FRAVM), Quique Villalobos: “In Asprima, when they get angry, they get what they want: they are very close to the governments and their capacity for influence is very great.
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what could be achieved by transforming offices into housing would be threatened because “some municipal councils have already declared in plenary session that the regulatory change approved by the Community was inapplicable”.
As an example of what he says, he points out that “they managed to increase the price of social housing by 30 percent.” This refers to the rise in power of the module to build this typology, frozen for years, which gave rise to complaints from manufacturers. Since February, he has been among the 1,900 and 2,820 euros, depending on the municipality and the type of protection.
Villalobos acknowledges that “they are right to say that over the last twenty years the field of urban planning has been judicialized.” But he argues that this is happening because “this resource has been left solely to citizens, due to the liberality in the application of town planning regulations”. He cites as an example the General Plan of 97, which “allows a developmentalism which does not respect the land law”. For this reason, “it would be desirable for town planning to be less judicialized, and also less discretionary”.
He agrees with Asprima on the need for legal certainty, but “this must go in all directions, because when you subscribe to a housing promotion and in the end it turns out that it costs you double that as you have been told, there should also be this legal security On the side of neighborhood associations, “we are not against construction, but to solve the current lack of housing, we cannot rely on just one. measure”.
empty floors
We must therefore turn to the “180,000 empty homes in Madrid, according to the INE”. And even if he is convinced that “they are not even habitable, even if half were, we still have tens of thousands of empty homes that would be viable to put on the real estate market.” Maybe that way, he adds, “there would be no need to build in the next ten years.”
Yes, they are against “construction in protected areas or risk areas such as flood zones”. A 200-year-old tree costs another 200 years to replace,” he recalls. This is why they reject projects aimed at “building developments on land with high ecological value”. A path that they are following, he denounces, “the latest omnibus laws of the Community of Madrid”, which according to him “are aberrant”.
Defend this position “should not be in contradiction with the possibility of building“. But this must be done “with respect for the percentage of protected housing”, and with truly accessible prices because “what we call affordable housing today is only a euphemism: the fact that the price of the module protection of 2,200 euros per square meter is not affordable; “The purchasing power of families has not increased this way over the last 15 years.”
Villalobos is convinced that “there is the possibility of carrying out respectful urban planning, freeing up land in old disused infrastructure and closing the real estate stock of cities”. But to achieve this, urban planning must also be “more participatory, so that Asprima is not the only one that is part of the council of wise people that examines the Urban Plan of Madrid, and we are not.”
