The Council of Ministers has given the green light today, Tuesday, to the text to modify the State Land and Urban Rehabilitation Law for its processing in the Cortes Generales after having declined in the previous legislature, a reform that seeks to provide legal certainty. Stability and certainty to urban plans. Through the text approved this Tuesday, the Executive seeks to prevent formal errors that can be corrected from leading to the total nullity of the territorial and urban planning instruments.
With the reactivation, which was already advanced by the minister of the sector, Isabel Rodríguez, at the beginning of the year, the Executive revives the preliminary draft Law that modifies the refunded text of the Land Law, which was approved by the Council of Ministers on December 13, 2022 but that did not begin its parliamentary processing due to the call for general elections.
The head of Housing hopes to have the support of the parliamentary groups to carry out this draft bill, which will help promote rehabilitation and construction actions, contributing to the objectives of the Recovery Plan.
After the opposition shown by Podemos, which assures that this reform is similar to the one that the Government of Mariano Rajoy tried to approve and that it gives free rein to the culture of “the big shot” and the speculation of vulture funds, the spokesperson for the Executive, Pilar Alegría has assured that there is a will to achieve a broad consensus in Congress to move it forward and that the first perception is that the majority of the groups are willing to approve it.
What is sought with these changes?
Housing has stressed that it has been widely demanded by the autonomous communities and city councils, it seeks to resolve a problem of legal security in Spanish territorial and urban planning, as well as advance the simplification and agility of the processes. The objective of this reform is to provide the field of territorial and urban planning with a set of measures that reinforce the stability of these instruments and legal certainty.
The reasons motivating the modification of the Land and Urban Rehabilitation Law, the Ministry has explained, are essentially the particularities of territorial and urban planning. In this sense, special attention is paid to the procedural steps, the legitimation for the exercise of actions and the identification of possible defects that could lead to their declaration of illegality, all aspects of the exclusive competence of the State.
The FEMP and the promoters applaud the measure
From the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), its first vice president and mayor of A Coruña, the socialist Inés Rey, has indicated that the modification of the Land Law responds to a unanimous request from the federation to provide greater security legal ad to the town councils when processing urban plans and that due to mere formal defects these are not paralyzed. She added that it is a demand that was made by the city councils to which today a response is given and measures are also adopted that guarantee the pending investments within the Recovery Plan.
The association of promoters and builders of Spain, APCEspaña, has also valued this measure, since it represents an important step to guarantee legal security in urban planning and address the lack of housing supply and accessibility difficulties with development and More effective land management with greater legal certainty.
According to their data, there are currently almost a centenary of municipalities, in which almost 4 million people are concentrated, affected by court rulings that have declared the nullity of their respective urban planning.
