The MPGM sets out the general conditions for the implementation of housing with services on sites designated for facilities, with the following goals:

• Boosting the implementation of housing with services to meet the needs of groups such as young people, the elderly, artists, researchers, vulnerable people etc.
• Guaranteeing the general interest and avoiding speculation with sites for facilities, preserving them for basic local use.
• Distributing this type of housing around the city to avoid it being concentrated in one place.
• Guaranteeing minimum habitability conditions and boosting autonomous accommodation, in other words small independent homes rather than collective residences.
• Reducing the impact of student residences and avoiding the concentration of buildings with a high density of users.
• Generating accommodation at affordable prices.

The amendment also does away with the current 5% limit on publicly owned sites for facilities being used for housing with services.

As for privately owned land designated for facilities, the maximum surface volume which can be used for housing with services is 7.5%. Current data show this means a potential 10 hectares which can be developed, which could provide 3,000 homes of this type, either complete dwellings or with new communal spaces.

The distribution of these projects by district will be implemented evenly, avoiding their concentration in one place.

Student residences

This new tool also seeks to regulate the increase in recent years in private student residences built on land designated for facilities. Between existing residences and those planned, there are 79 buildings of this type in the city, with 13,800 places on land for facilities and zonal land, in other words land not earmarked for facilities. Eighteen residences of this type have been processed in the last few years and are in the process of obtaining a licence.

This growth has meant a loss in land designated for facilities and basic services and led to local people rejecting the impact generated in the surroundings. Examples here include the cases identified in Av. Paral·lel and in the 22@.

The MPGM will thus avoids large buildings of this type being located in saturated areas, ensuring local people’s hours of rest and everyday way of life. The distribution of residences will match that in the update to the Special Urban Plan on Tourist Accommodation (PEUAT), meaning they cannot be opened in areas classified as decreasing (city centre) or as maintenance (inner city belt around the city centre), except where tourist accommodation or youth hostels are reconverted.

New residences will only be allowed in the rest of the Barcelona, with a maximum capacity of 3,500 places and limited radial distances between them.

Affordable prices

The approval of the MPGM will be accompanied by a by-law regulating the prices of housing with services and student residences, making them affordable and helping towards quality inclusive housing and equal opportunities.