The Minister of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands, Sebastián Franquis, visited the land on which one of the three 151 public housing developments will be built on Monday, together with the mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez that this city council will execute thanks to the agreement signed by both administrations with the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda last July.
After the signing of the agreement, and with a total investment of 24,135,673 euros, The lagoon will expand the public housing stock for the first time in more than a decade, with the construction of these 151 new homes, of which the projects are already being prepared to start the construction of the first development in the summer of next year .
The councilor and the mayor visited this morning the municipal plot of 2,200 square meters in the area of Los Barriales, in Taco, in which the construction of 71 homes is planned. Another 44 will be built in Tejina and 36 more in El Centurión.
“We are in luck because a decade later La Laguna is going to carry out the construction of public housing,” said Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, who highlighted the joint work of the different administrations, and especially the councilor Sebastián Franquis, in making it possible these 151 dwellings in the municipality.
Sebastián Franquis congratulated the City Council of La Laguna for being one of the few local administrations to sign this three-way agreement with the Autonomous Community and the Government of Spain. “This is good news,” said the counselor, “because La Laguna is going to be one of the first municipalities to start building houses of this type in 2023.”
Franquis wanted to recall that the European funds for this action must be invested “before 2026, and the forecasts we have is that these investments fit perfectly into the deadlines for the construction of these 151 homes”.
The counselor informed that, thanks to this agreement, the Canary Islands “is the first Autonomous Community that began to receive the first transfers of European funds”, which are allocated to two fundamental items: on the one hand, the rehabilitation of approximately 2,300 homes between public and private; and on the other, the construction of rental housing at affordable prices. In this second program the State makes a contribution of 30.8 million euros, and the Autonomous Community another 45 million.
“In total we are talking about more than 75 million that we are going to invest to build around 671 homes in the Canary Islands at affordable prices for families with fewer resources,” said the minister, recalling that it is “the first time that we have incorporated this type of housing of affordable rent to the public park, and that attends to a very important demand”, since there are currently some 9,500 families registered in the register of demand for private housing in the Canary Islands.
Sebastián Franquis explained that, to qualify for these homes, families must appear in this registry and have an income of less than four times the IPREM. The maximum rental price will be 400 euros per month.
For his part, the mayor announced a municipal contribution of 16,585,000 euros for this program with which the 151 homes in La Laguna will be built, and assured that “we are going to continue working to be able to offer the different administrations the land of municipal ownership that is available for this purpose, to meet the great demand for housing that we have in the municipality. We have the obligation to use the resources that we have, both economic and developable land, to be able to provide this type of housing to citizens”, expressed Luis Yeray Gutiérrez.
The agreement signed with the Ministry includes financing for the construction of some 151 homes in energy efficient buildings, with requirements such as reducing by 20% the limit value of non-renewable primary energy consumption established in section HE0 for its climatic zone or include in the projects a construction waste management study where at least 70% of the weight of non-hazardous construction waste will be prepared for reuse, recycling and recovery of other materials, in addition to limiting the generation of waste in processes related to construction and demolition.
The total cost of the actions amounts to 24,135,673 euros, of which the Ministry contributes 7.5 million and the City Council the remaining 16.5. The works must be completed before June 30, 2026. At present, preliminary studies are in the phase and the estimate is that the first promotion to be executed will be Tejina, which would begin in August 2023; the work of Los Barriales would begin in January 2024 and the 36 homes of El Centurión in June 2024.
