New limits on vacation rentals
A new law regulating vacation rentals in the Canary Islands is set to reserve 90% of all buildable land for residential use. In the ‘green islands’ and municipalities facing demographic challenges, this restriction is slightly lowered to 80%. This means that out of every 100 homes, only ten can be used for “touristic lodging purposes”—or twenty in the non-capital islands and areas affected by depopulation, aging, or loss of structural economic activity.
Even stricter measures proposed
The political groups supporting the Canary Islands government (CC, PP, ASG, and AHI) are pushing for even stricter measures. They have presented an amendment that would separate properties used for “commercial activities”—such as law offices, hostels, notary offices, or real estate agencies—from the total pool when calculating the percentage of vacation homes. In practice, this proposal, which is expected to be included in the amended text due to the government pact’s majority, could reduce the base number of 90 hypothetical homes to 80 or 70. This would leave only eight or seven vacation rental establishments permitted in each zone of the various municipalities, depending on the case.
Justifying exceptions with carrying capacity studies
Furthermore, the government groups propose that authorizing tourist use for homes that do not comply with the established reserve percentages can only be done through provisional urban planning ordinances. These must “credibly justify the decision by incorporating a carrying capacity study.” In other words, a report must verify “that there is a sufficient number of homes for sale and rent to adequately meet the demand of residents and workers.” This study will also “verify that prices are reasonable given the area’s average income.” For the analysis of supply, “housing under construction will be considered, but available land will not.”
Balancing tourism with community needs
The justification for this new safeguard, introduced in one of the amendments to the law currently being debated in Parliament, is to “guarantee a balance between permanent residential use—which is constitutionally protected—and other lucrative uses like tourism, as required by the principle of sustainable urban and territorial development.”
Assessing cultural and social impact
Another limitation for granting vacation rental licenses requires administrations to understand “what effects tourist activity has on the resident population” and its “potential influence on the cultural environment, especially in those areas with ethnographic value.” The rationale for analyzing social capacity “as a mandatory component of the carrying capacity study” is that it “provides legal coverage for planning based on criteria of social justice and cultural preservation.” This allows for “balanced decisions that avoid the negative effects of the ‘touristification’ of neighborhoods” across the municipalities.
Addressing strain on local infrastructure
The groups supporting the Executive also believe it is necessary to address, “from a preventive perspective,” the cumulative effects that the expansion of tourist housing has on basic municipal infrastructure. This includes water supply, the electrical grid, sanitation, waste collection, and road accessibility. For this reason, they include in the law, through another amendment, a requirement that the aforementioned carrying capacity study pay special attention to “the problem of increased consumption of supplies and waste generation in tourist-use homes.”
Different rules for different islands
Finally, different age restrictions will apply to properties. For El Hierro, La Gomera, La Palma, and the municipalities facing demographic challenges, residential homes intended for tourist activity “must be at least five years old.” For the rest of the territory, the minimum age requirement will be ten years.
