Malaga city offers developers opportunity to build and manage more than one thousand temporary subsidised rental homes

Malaga city council has opened the period for collecting offers from developers who wish to take part in the new plan to build temporary protected rental housing (for no more than seven years) for young people and those over 65 year of age on municipally owned plots that are currently unused. On Monday, Instituto Municipal de la Vivienda (IMV) opened the call for companies to submit proposals for the three plots offered, which together consist of 14 sites spread across all districts of the city.

Companies have until 2 January to submit their proposals and they can apply for one, two or all three lots. The land is offered free of charge by the city council, with a concession period of 75 years for construction and operation of the homes. The total investment for developing is worth more than 26 million euros.

The IMV’s goal is to take advantage of the regional government's provision allowing subsidised housing (VPO) to be built on unused service-zoned plots in order to add more than a thousand homes to its housing plan. These homes cannot be occupied for more than seven years (except for tenants over 65) and rents may not exceed 10 euros per usable square metre per month.

Of all the homes, 60% must be allocated to young people under 35. In addition, at least 55% must consist of one-bedroom units, with an approximate usable area of 45 square metres. The rest may be two-bedroom units, with a maximum usable area of 60 square metres. 15% percent of each building's usable area must be dedicated to common spaces and commercial premises may not exceed 10% of the built area.

The companies taking on construction of the units, which will total between 1,414 or 1,256, depending on the size of the flats, will also be responsible for cleaning the common areas of each building, maintenance and utilities for energy and water in those shared spaces. Furthermore, the fees charged to tenants may not exceed 15% of the rental amount, including storage room and parking space.

From the moment they sign the contract, developers will have two months to submit the project and request a building permit. Then, they will have 30 months to complete construction once that permit is granted by the urban planning department. Keys must be delivered within three months after the work is completed.

The 14 plots make up the first phase of a plan for which urban planning selected 22 service-zoned plots that meet regional requirements for temporary subsidised rental units. An advantage of this initiative is that these are ready-to-build plots, already developed for residential construction, where only the project needs to be submitted in order to obtain a building license.

Companies are required to apply for any national or regional government grants available for constructing this type of housing. However, if those calls do not exist or the companies do not receive such aid, the city counil will provide a subsidy of up to 18,000 euros per home built (400 euros per usable square metre), non-refundable.