Malaga will run out of land for housing in three years with no new development started

Malaga's real estate reality depicts a housing crisis aggravated by land scarcity. According to recent statistics from the architects' association, Malaga approves more than 2,000 new homes each year. Ironically, this speed of construction is expected to come up against a wall: the full exhaustion of major plots ready for construction over the next three years.

If there is one thing that experts in the real estate sector and the majority of public institutions agree on, it is that the current problem of access to housing can be solved with a greater supply of both free-market and subsidised flats.

A review of the main residential operations currently developed in the city reveals that new plots are quickly taken up by developers. This is an indication of their awareness that land is a scarce commodity.

This is what is happening in the Distrito Zeta and Cortijo Merino (the Intelhorce area). While the two residential areas themselves are still under development, investors have already started building the first homes. In Zeta, where 877 of the 3,443 flats planned are under construction, the structures of the first blocks can be seen.

Distrito Zeta and the land formerly occupied by the Amoniaco factory (Cortijo Merino) are two of the four large land reserves currently under construction in Malaga, together with one to the west of the Teatinos campus (for 1,236 dwellings) and the one in La Térmica (400 luxury flats and 273 subsidised housing units).

Between the four of them, there are plots available for some 5,400 dwellings, to which can be added the homes to be built on the land of Portillo (108 free-market flats plus 50 subsidised units), in El Cuartón in Churriana (some 500) and in the new residential areas of El Tomillar and Torremar-Atabal (153 and 122, respectively). According to the information provided by the private initiative control service of the city council's architecture department, there may currently be land available for some 6,400 dwellings.

What happens next? The outlook is not very encouraging. According to the city's urban planning, there are plans to convert land for the development of more than 28,000 homes, of which more than 12,000 will be subsidised units. However, most are still at an early stage of processing, weighed down by bureaucracy and the lack of infrastructure necessary for their development.

Rojas Santa Tecla, located near the Benítez, to the west of Carretera de Churriana, is one of the areas closest to being converted. A total of 2,690 dwellings are to be constructed around a golf course there.

The city council is also finalising the process for the transformation of the Buenavista land (next to Cortijo Merino), where the central government has planned 1,362 subsidised housing units.

Beyond these two areas however, the 'production' of new land on which to build more homes is still a long way off. The lack of impetus from the regional government of Andalucía to channel the Campanillas river has blocked land for 7,326 dwellings, of which 4,140 will be subsidised.

Likewise, the projects to develop two area to the west of Puerto de la Torre (Lagar de Oliveros and Soliva Oeste) for a total of 5,600 dwellings, of which 3,754 will be subsidised housing, are still in preparation.