Malaga has gained more than 1,000 homes since 2024 thanks to conversion of commercial premises

The conversion of commercial premises into housing in the city of Malaga has created over 1,000 new homes, according to data from the municipal planning department. Since 2024, this has added a total of 1,148 homes, with 707 of those emerging precisely that year thanks to the city council's approval.

The current housing crisis has led many owners of vacant commercial spaces to undertake these types of conversions to provide housing for close relatives or to offer the flats for rent.

City officials, however, do not want this trend of transforming commercial spaces into new, smaller homes to become commonplace, although urban planning regulations allow it.

As SUR reported on Thursday, the urban planning department is studying a measure, essentially a moratorium, to temporarily halt the conversion of more commercial premises into housing. The aim is for the department to give itself some time to come up with stricter regulations.

Behind this initiative are two arguments that particularly concern city officials. On the one hand, the progressive loss of commercial space in some neighborhoods is disrupting the balance of use in different parts of the city. On the other hand, there is the suspicion that many of these commercial spaces end up as tourist rental flats.

The current moratorium on tourist flats in Malaga theoretically bans them in any part of the city, including upper floors and ground-floor commercial spaces. However, for conversions into three or more dwellings, the owner can obtain permits from the city council and the Andalusian regional government to operate them as a group of tourist flats. The moratorium does not apply to them.

According to data from building permit records since 2024, of the 1,148 above-mentioned dwellings, 373 could be tourist flats. Theoretically, the rest should be primary residences.

According to head of the association of property administrators Manuel Jiménez Caro, this measure is unnecessary. He believes that when commercial premises convert into flats, it happens "in spaces that have remained closed for a long time". He considers this state of abandonment worse for the city.

For Jiménez Caro, what requires regulating is the future use of those spaces so that they can turn into permanent homes. According to him, the owners of these spaces are more interested in renting them out to businesses "because it causes them less of a headache". "If they choose to convert them into flats, it's because there's a need to provide housing solutions for many families," Jiménez Caro stated.

Left-wing municipal groups have criticised the governing team for an initiative that they consider belated and raise concerns. "If all conversions of commercial premises into housing are banned for a period of time, the innocent will suffer," opposition councillor Mariano Ruiz Araujo said.

According to Ruiz Araujo, the city council should focus instead on "strengthening inspections" so that these homes, which currently represent "a refuge and an opportunity" for many people, do not end up being occupied by tourists.

Deputy spokesperson for Con Málaga Toni Morillas believes that this potential moratorium on housing in commercial premises comes "too late (...) and without a real desire to change a city model that prioritises tourism profit over the right to housing". "The governing team has lost all credibility. Those who have been directly responsible for the problem cannot present themselves as the solution," she pointed out.

Hard-right spokesperson Antonio Alcaraz has supported the measure the urban planning department is currently studying because he believes that converting commercial premises into housing "cannot be normalised".

"This cannot become the norm, because it is not how a city or housing should be built. It's losing sight of the bigger picture," Alcaraz said. For him, this practice "strains and overcrowds neighbourhoods".