The Palma City Council this summer will prohibit the rental of tourist apartments in all neighborhoods of the city and announces fines of up to 40,000 euros to those who promote this activity. The Deputy Mayor of City Model, Urbanism and Dignified Housing, Antoni Noguera, has announced the approval of this measure to the problems that this activity has generated in guaranteeing access to housing for residents, with rents that are Have skyrocketed 7.5% in the past year and an average increase of the square meter to lease that has grown 40% and touches the 11 euros according to its calculations. The announcement of the municipal regulation has aroused controversy, because in principle this regulation is the responsibility of the autonomous community, which is preparing its own standard. But the mayor has decided not to wait for her.
The Consistory aims to combat the growing phenomenon of holiday housing platforms such as Airbnb, where many owners sell and promote multi-family properties for profit, an end that is already prohibited by the Urban Leasing Act. Despite the fact that the regional government is developing regulations to allow and regulate the offer of tourist apartments according to the areas of each island, Palma City Council considers the possibility of prohibiting it definitively in all areas of the city, according to Indicated the councilman.
A municipal study reveals that in the Balearic capital there are currently 3,191 homes for holiday rental, representing 21,216 places and 70% of the city's tourist offer. "90% is a non-regulated offer" says the mayor, who insists that "there is not a single multi-family tourist accommodation in Palma that has a license." That is why it has announced a sanctioning offense with fines of up to 40,000 euros against owners of flats and apartments that are promoted and advertised on tourist platforms such as Airbnb.
One of the problems faced by the Consistory when fining is that the sanctioning powers are the Ministry of Tourism, which has only fifteen inspectors who are not only engaged in this work. Despite this, Noguera has warned those who try to take advantage of the holiday rental this summer: "you can get a fine of 40,000 euros at home."
The environmental collective Terraferida has published a study this week revealing that AirBnB offered in Mallorca in early 2016 a total of 11,271 accommodations with a capacity for 78,543 places and that none "declares to have tourist license" in the advertisement. Their accommodation, according to the document, added more than half a million stays in 2015 and were offered from tent stays in an igloo and a house in a tree.