The mayor of Málaga defends the construction of 1,186 protected homes and another 3,997 in tender, while PSOE, Vox, and Con Málaga accuse him of an exhausted city model.
The state of the city debate held in Málaga this Wednesday saw a clash between the PP government team and the opposition over the housing crisis, as reported by Diario Sur. Mayor Paco de la Torre claimed that the City Council is currently building 1,186 protected homes and that another 3,997 are in the preliminary tender phase, in addition to the 5,339 delivered since 2000 (2,511 for sale and 2,628 for rent).
The session, the second and final one of this term (2023-2027), lasted 120 minutes in the mayor's first turn, reviewing projects, new police officers, firefighters, and markets that, according to reports, detracted from the debate. The opposition, made up of PSOE, Vox, and Con Málaga, agreed in highlighting housing as the central issue and that the city model needs to look to the future.
“Málaga is today a much better city than before. When has Málaga been like it is now?” said De la Torre during his speech.
The mayor argued that, while the income of Europeans has improved by 14.2% between 2018 and 2024, that of Spaniards has only grown by 4%, summarising it with a “we are stagnant.” The popular spokesperson, Carmen Casero, who was making her debut in this debate following the departure of Elisa Pérez de Siles, defended her position with a “no to kicking down doors, no to fierce interventionism, no to expropriation and yes to building more homes, the more the better.”
The socialist spokesperson, Mariano Ruiz Araujo, criticised the mayor's policies and described the current Málaga as “the one where families are budgeting to pay rent, where people lose hours getting to work, or where parents fear their children won’t be able to live where they were born.” He also recalled the “hundreds of Maricarmen who have passed through this plenary” and those who have had to move to Villanueva del Rosario.
From Vox, Antonio Alcázar acknowledged the transformation of the city but warned that “the project, the city model that you embody has been exhausted since 2015.” The spokesperson for Con Málaga, Nico Sguiglia, focused on the data: 12,600 tourist-use homes, 16,000 empty homes, and 360 apartment buildings, which he calculated to a total of 40,000 homes against 35,000 VPO applicants in the municipal registry. “Here we have the problem,” he concluded.
The debate took place after Monday's demonstration and with a group of people camping in the plaza de la Constitución following the eviction of Maricarmen, a matter that loomed over the entire session. The opposition insisted that the city model is exhausted and that housing will be decisive in Málaga's immediate future.
You may also like
