The Councilor for Digital Transformation and Sustainability, and for Housing of the municipality of Andorra la Vella, Marc Torrenthas warned that the expansion of the public housing stock, despite being necessary, will not be sufficient to solve the residential crisis that the country is experiencing. Torrent has defended that the construction of public flats must be combined with structural measures capable of affecting the real estate marketforeign investment and the escalation of rental prices. “500 public flats will not solve the housing crisis“, said the councilor, who contextualized this figure by recalling that only a Andorra la Vella has between 10,000 and 12,000 homes. “Even if we reached 600 public flats, we would still be talking about a very small percentage of the total park,” he added.
Torrent considers that the debate cannot be limited solely to the construction of new buildings. “If you really want to give an immediate response to the housing crisis, there are other mechanisms that the Government has at its disposal,” he said. Among these, he pointed to the need to act on real estate investment and incentives which, in his opinion, continue to feed the pressure on prices.
The councilor has questioned what Andorra continues to allow foreign investors to acquire two properties. “Why are foreign investors still allowed to buy two homes when most buy one?” he asked. As he has argued, some recent measures “have only served to increase purchase prices”, referring to the increase in the minimum real estate investment threshold, which has gone from 600,000 to 800,000 euros.
“It’s not an immediate answer”
Torrent he has also put on the table the tempos of the public housing policieswarning that the construction of new buildings requires years and cannot give one quick solution to a problem that affects thousands of people. As an example, he recalled that the project of New board it was promoted a few years ago and no one lives there yet. “Many times people talk about building a building with 50 homes as if that would solve the problem, but the crisis doesn’t affect 50 people; it affects a large part of society,” he remarked. In this regard, he recalled that about 80% of the country’s rental contracts remain frozena situation that, as he has said, evidences the magnitude of the problem and existing vulnerability to future deregulation of the market.
The councilor has particularly warned of the impact that the gradual unfreezing of rental contracts can have expected in the coming years. “We know that the situation will not improve either this year or the next, and that many families will be even more stressed when the contracts end,” he warned.
The communal strategy: diversify and build for the long term
Torrent has vindicated the housing policy promoted by the municipality of Andorra la Vella during the mandatebased, he explained, on “diversify to the maximum” the projects and also mobilize private capital for increase the affordable offer. In this framework, the model of public-private collaboration proposed in Old Earthas well as communal participation in the Cedar floors or the future rehabilitation of Jaume Iwhich must allow enable 18 homes for the elderly. “If you are not able to mobilize private money, you will not solve the crisis”, defended Torrent, who considers that Andorra is decades behind other European countries in terms of public housing.
The councilor has given as an example Viennacity that has built for decades a large public residential park. “Vienna has been building affordable housing for a hundred years. We won’t get it tomorrow or next year,” he said. Therefore, he has defended that the aim of the administrations must also be to think in the long term and consolidate a stable public park. “Our responsibility is that in 40 or 50 years the community has the tools and assets to continue responding to future housing crises,” he concluded.
