On Monday, President Prohens presented the Balearic Government's intention to invest €228 million in its emergency plan for the building of public housing. She told a meeting of Mallorca's mayors that this investment will create 1,213 homes and emphasised several times that these will be homes for "local people". A government requirement is five years of residency before being able to access public housing.
Construction of most of these new homes will start in 2026. Swifter planning procedures introduced under government legislation will reduce processing times by up to three years in certain municipalities. The reduction will otherwise be by one or two years and will follow similar lines to those for the building of schools and health centres; there are faster procedures for these.
Prohens observed that "lengthy and cumbersome" procedures cause delay and that she would like the revised procedures to be faster still. "We have a housing emergency, and it is necessary to act on all possible fronts."
"Never before has so much public housing been built as under this government," Prohens stated. "Public housing and affordable housing. Above all, housing for the people of this region." Forty-seven developments are being processed, 29 of these in Mallorca for 613 homes. These will increase homes that come under the Ibavi housing agency from 1,988 to 2,601.
By municipality, 210 are planned for Palma, 89 for Marratxi, 53 for Soller, 36 for Calvia and 34 for Maria de la Salut. Others are Santa Maria 27, Pollença 25, Llucmajor 23, Petra 16, Capdepera, Manacor and Sant Llorenç all 15, Arta 12, Sencelles ten, Bunyola nine, Felanitx and Sa Pobla both eight, Alaro and Sineu four, and Sant Joan three.
"The commitment to public housing is just one of the pillars of our emergency plan," said Prohens in a presentation ahead of a housing debate in the Balearic Parliament on Tuesday, which has been called by Vox and the left-wing opposition parties. One criticism that the housing minister, José Luis Mateo, is likely to face concerns a lack of provision of actual social housing in terms of social rent for those on very low incomes. The government's plans centre on the building of homes with different price regulation regimes - limited-price housing and VPO.