Pablo Rodríguez (Telde, Gran Canaria, 43 years old) is Minister of Public Works, Housing and Mobility of the Canary Islands. He lives in a house he owns in his hometown, where he started in politics as an urban planning councilor. In 2017, during Fernando Clavijo’s first term as regional president, he was named vice president when his party, Canarian Coalition, declared the pact with the PSOE broken and began to govern alone. The nationalists returned to power in 2023 and on this occasion the vice presidency has gone to the PP, but Rodríguez added the hot potato of housing to his functions in the previous government. A matter, he says, in which public intervention is more than justified.
Ask. What did municipal experience teach you to manage housing policies?
Answer. To put faces to a problem that today is the main problem that the Canaries have, and that affects many families. Maybe two decades ago it mainly affected the most vulnerable and the youngest, but today it is a problem that is rooted in the entire society. And in that, municipal politics gives you a bath of reality.
P. What are the main emergencies right now?
R. The Government of the Canary Islands, from the beginning of this legislature, stated that housing was precisely an emergency. In February of this year we declared by decree law the housing emergency in the Canary Islands. It has become a widespread problem on all islands. And we are making the biggest commitment that has been made in history to delve into instruments that allow us to articulate and mobilize public housing, first of all; of a protected nature, secondly; and housing in general, in third place. It is not a new problem, but it has many edges and the instruments to solve it are not one or two.
P. What are those instruments?
R. In the last decade and a half, virtually no public housing has been built. There we have made a very important effort in the last 12 months and we have more than a thousand public housing units being built on all the islands. It is a good balance, but we are aware that we have to multiply that figure. And we are also aware that not only public housing will respond to the housing emergency. That is why we have also approved a series of instruments to encourage the private sector to build protected housing.
P. How are they going to attract the sector?
R. Various incentives have to do with land management. In many cases, facilitate the transformation of land from tourist use to residential use, guaranteeing a reserve of protected housing. In others, transformation of existing buildings into housing, reserving half for protected housing. We are on islands that have a large part of their territory protected, land consumption is very limited and the approaches are based on built buildings or on developable land that has not been developed. And finally, mobilize the homes that already exist and are closed. I insist: there are no precedents in the Canary Islands for so many instruments and measures to respond, knowing perfectly well that there is no magic wand and that there is no single measure that is the panacea.
P. Are there price tension areas in the Canary Islands?
R. The declaration of a housing emergency is a declaration that the entire Canary Islands are under tension. I do not find nuances that differentiate a stressed area from an area declared in housing emergency. We will probably be talking about very similar things. What then entails one thing and the other is what we could begin to discuss, but the declaration of a stressed zone in itself is not an end, it is a declaration to take specific actions in an urgent, extraordinary, exceptional way… And what What we have done with the declaration of a housing emergency is to approve a series of exceptional measures.
P. But don’t they contemplate the formulas provided by state law?
R. No city council in the Canary Islands has requested the declaration of a stressed area with the mandatory reports that this entails. The law entails specific measures for that area and we have declared the specific measures for the entire Canary Islands. It seems that it is about simplifying everything in that there is a limitation on the rental price, and that is not the only thing.
P. You reject rent caps, right?
R. We disagree. If someone justifies that limiting the rental price in a stressed area guarantees that access to housing will be easier for citizens, we are going to defend it. But a priori, what the experiences have shown, and I think there are various reports in that sense, is that the supply is reduced. And we do not want to limit the offer.
P. But promotion is slow, what do you propose in the short term?
R. We have more than a thousand homes being built and we will be able to hand over the keys starting in 2025 and 2026. This will improve the situation. The transformation of buildings has a much shorter execution time than construction; and the mobilization of empty housing, too. We are exploring a path of public-private collaboration with real estate agents and insurers to try to guarantee income and have the agents market them. The Canarian Government would guarantee the rent and set price conditions.
P. They are also exploring limiting purchases by foreigners.
R. If there is a sensitive territory, which has the conditions to seek an exception within the framework of the European Union, it is the Canary Islands due to its condition as an outermost island region. We have commissioned different reports to argue this, with the aim of limiting non-residents. There is data in recent years that up to a third of home purchases are made by non-residents. This greatly affects supply and demand. Therefore, it impacts the housing problem.
P. The PP, its government partner, usually criticizes interventionism in housing matters. And this measure clearly is…
R. Virtually all the measures we have approved in recent years are interventionist. We are intervening in the market. When we approve rental aid to encourage supply or to help demand, we are intervening; and when we talk about generating limitations, well, too. We cannot talk about housing as an exclusively market element. I think that’s the key to the matter. Housing is a right included in the Constitution, included in our Statute of Autonomy, and is key and decisive for building a life project. Therefore, if there is one element that precisely justifies all these actions, it is that housing is more than just a market. It is a right that citizens have.
P. What do we do with the tourist apartments?
R. When we talk about the fact that the supply of housing has been limited, a part of that housing has gone to vacation homes. What the Canarian Government has done is put unprecedented regulation on the table. The new law that is going to be debated in the Parliament of the Canary Islands will establish a limit in each locality, probably 10% of the total number of homes. This limit is exceeded in many municipalities and the municipalities themselves will have to regulate and zone.
P. And are they going to give the inspection more power to control it?
R. Between councils and city councils, because there are shared responsibilities there, we have to provide ourselves with more resources. There is also a very important change: along with the responsible declaration to request a tourist home, complementary technical documentation will have to be incorporated to guarantee the protection of the tourist user and the neighbors. We are not against vacations, it is one more element that contributes to our tourist destination. What we have to take care of is that it does not denigrate or harm the tourist destination nor does it affect the resident population in their search for housing.
P. What policy does the Canary Islands develop that other Autonomous Communities could copy?
R. There are policies that we approved in February of this year that have already been approved in other communities. For example, the transformation of building use. Just as we are constantly looking, I cannot deny, what all the autonomous communities do in terms of housing, and not only in Spain.
P. Would a State pact be advisable? Why does it sometimes seem so difficult to reach agreements on housing if everyone agrees that it is a big problem?
R. There are issues that I consider to be state policies. Housing has to become one of those things and it must be an issue that is above party political differences. In the Canary Islands, the current housing plan, which ends next year 2026, was approved unanimously. We have started talking about the next one. What is done in the Canary Islands could also be done in the State. It is true that we have managed, even by distance, to distance ourselves quite a bit from the polarized politics that we see daily in Congress.
