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Europa Press
Malaga
Monday, 26 August 2024, 19:06
The vice-president of AVVA PRO, the Andalusian association of holiday rental professionals, Juan Cubo, has rejected the tax for overnight stays in tourist homes that the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre , has proposed to Spain's national government. "We are once again being targeted in a totally unfair way, blaming us for what is a lack of planning on the part of all the governing bodies".
Cubo, speaking to Europa Press, acknowledged that this type of announcement "makes us uncomfortable, it cannot be otherwise", as "they are putting us back in their sights on the firing range, as if tourist accommodation were to blame for the fact that those in charge have not known how to plan, have shown enormous negligence with regard to planning in terms of housing, not in a matter of just one legislature, but many".
Cubo added that "we don't see any future plans to solve the problem" because, he continued, "if there is no social housing or if there is no affordable housing for citizens in general, obviously, it is because the administrations have put the brakes on construction with a lot of bureaucracy and with a lot of obstacles so that no project can go ahead without freeing up land, and so it is really very difficult to build at the pace that the demand is requesting".
He also referred to the perceived issue with rents going up, which "is exactly the same": "There is a huge lack of legal defence for owners". In view of this "defencelessness", he alluded to the INE (national institute of statistics) data that indicate that "in Malaga, within the total of existing housing stock, 15% of homes are unoccupied, locked up, and only 1.76% of homes are set up for tourist use".
In Cubo's opinion, "it is hardly credible to make people think that the 1.76% of owners who decide to lawfully allocate their home to a different type of rental, which offers more security than traditional renting, are responsible for the lack of social housing in Malaga".
"If there is a lack of social housing in Malaga it is because the administrations in charge have not bothered to promote and build it, with an attitude of obvious dereliction of duty", he stated, while insisting that "now they want to make these owners pay a tax, those 1.76% of owners who decide to rent for holidays or short-term lets, because they can be short stays for workers too, not only for tourists, because once again they are putting us in the wrong place and they are doing it in a very unfair way".
Cubo also gave as an example that the mayor of Malaga "could have proposed in the same way to impose a tax on flats that stand empty", which would yield more in tax. Therefore, he stressed that "we cannot agree with this measure, not because of the fact of payment but because, in the end, the traveller will have to pay if there is a tax. It is putting us back in the firing line, to be trampled underfoot in a totally unfair way, making us responsible for what is a lack of planning on the part of all the governing bodies".
On this point, Cubo made it clear that "all" the administrations "have failed in terms of planning", even more so in a city like Malaga, "which has become a big draw, not only for tourists, but also for workers".
"Two decades ago, when people from Malaga studied, they had to go abroad because there were no opportunities here, and now we all stay here" because "there are opportunities, thanks precisely to good planning from the strategic point of view of the mayor, who has turned the city around", he said, adding that "these people do need housing" and "not only that, but talent is coming from abroad to work in Malaga because we have magnificent conditions".
Therefore, Cubo said, "we need to plan for housing, which is going to be lacking, precisely because we have become the centre of attention". "It is clear that tourist housing is not responsible for this. This 1.76% cannot be responsible for the ills that are being blamed on us".
Furthermore, he said that "by seeking to impose this tax, in one way or another, it is being put on the table that we could be responsible for the lack of social housing" and "we are not".
Despite these misgivings, he assured us that "we are very proactive and we are working earnestly and directly with the city council and we are at their disposal to contribute ideas, knowledge, whatever is necessary for the general interest of our sector in particular but also, of course, in the general interest of the city of Malaga".
Moreover, Cubo stated, after being questioned about whether his association is open to discussing possible solutions with Malaga city council, that "we are totally at the disposal of the mayor and his team at all times to talk about absolutely everything". "We are the first in line to be interested in this city progressing and in all of us progressing".
"What we really want is cooperation and, of course, that we are not criminalised, and this type of announcement obviously puts us back in the spotlight as being responsible for something for which we are obviously not responsible, that is, the lack of social housing", Cubo concluded.
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