A two-year delay in obtaining a municipal permit for property renovation is the average wait time for residents of Pollensa, as City Planning is facing significant delays in processing this documentation.
In fact, the workload amounts to 4,800 document entries per year, of which 1,500 are new cases. According to Urbanisme coordinator, Tomeu Antich, "the majority are prior communications, urban certificates, and building permits related to residential areas, as well as in the hotel sector."
The case of Toni Nadal, uncle and former coach of Rafa Nadal, is one of the examples of this delay. The Manacor native purchased the Galeón apart-hotel in 2022 and has been waiting for a year and a half for the town hall's approval to renovate and reopen it. Nadal explained that although he has been notified that the permit is imminent, he does not expect to have the renovations completed and the hotel open for this summer season.
While Pollensa is not the only municipality in Mallorca facing this issue, the situation has worsened in recent years. "When we took up office, there were only three architects, two of whom were technicians. Moreover, there was no engineer," Antich lamented. In fact, although Tots per Pollença and the Pi party criticized Antich's hiring as a "hand-picked" appointment and claimed that the coordinator position was tailored for him, the current government argued that the reason was precisely to address the backlog faced by the department.
In this regard, the current government aims to halve the current waiting time: "A maximum of one year delay would be a good figure considering the pending cases we have accumulated," Antich acknowledges. To achieve this, the current government is organizing the database, which "is currently deficient, creating new indicators to expedite technical administrative work and be more efficient." In the same way, to increase transparency in the department, they have also made available an email address where citizens can inquire about document processing issues.