The Aptur holiday rentals association yesterday held a meeting with Palma mayor Antoni Noguera and deputy mayor for urban planning, José Hila, and came away from it expressing concern about a potential total ban on rentals in the city.
President Joan Miralles said that the association is trying to negotiate the regulation of the rental sector but believes that the town hall intends to avoid the "speculative economy" by putting a stop to rental activity. He did, however, add that there will be a further meeting with the town hall once technical issues regarding the application of the rentals legislation are more advanced.
He pointed out that holiday rentals "democratise" incomes and have a positive benefit for the non-hotel sector. The current town hall administration, he said, appears to have forgotten this.
Prior to yesterday's meeting, Aptur had met Mercedes Garrido of the Council of Majorca on Thursday. She has responsibility for determining the zones for rentals. Aptur called for there to be a "more realistic" number of places available for holiday rentals and said that there should be a minimum of 65,000.
Aptur has a good deal of support in Pollensa, where the local tourism economy has a high dependence on holiday rentals: there are more legal rentals places than hotel places at present. At a meeting with the mayor, Miquel Àngel March, various associations - residents, business and villa properties - made the case for holiday rentals. The Cala San Vicente residents association said that the "survival" of this part of Pollensa was at stake.
The mayor said that he thought that he believed that there will be few restrictions on zoning in Pollensa, suggesting that Garrido has already intimated that this will be the case. Nevertheless, it will remain to be seen how many places might actually be made available in Pollensa.