Overview

• The City Council formally submitted its request on May 26 to the Xunta de Galicia’s housing institute for declaration of the entire municipality as a ‘zona de mercado residencial tensionado’.
• A report by the Grupo de Estudos Territoriais de la Universidade da Coruña determined that Santiago meets two of the four legal criteria for a residential stressed market zone.
• The council is urging the threshold for ‘gran tenedor’ status to be lowered to owners of five or more residential properties, affecting 463 individuals who collectively control about 3,700 homes.
• Approval of the designation would allow measures including caps on rent hikes tied to reference price indexes, a tax on long-term vacant homes, landlord tax incentives and access to state housing funds.
• The Xunta de Galicia has six months to rule on the petition before a potential contentious-administrative appeal process would be triggered.