In Barcelona, it is no longer enough to comply with the 30% reserve of protected housing: now, in addition, the City Council is buying the flats resulting from that obligation. When some developers were finally beginning to find a way to fit (with effort, numbers, and infinite patience) the famous HPO within private developments, a new plot twist appears: the Administration enters the scene and acquires that product, fruit of the few developments being made in Barcelona under the application of the 30% and from which families waiting to access a home should benefit. And it does so by competing with advantage and priority, taking away real purchasing opportunities from Barcelona families and turning what should have been a "mixed formula" into a model that adds uncertainty and jeopardizes the viability of the operation.
The 30% was approved, at least in theory, to generate protected housing within new construction in the city. That is: so that Barcelona citizens with average incomes, who cannot compete in the free market, would have a real opportunity to access a home of their own. But if these flats end up in the hands of the City Council, the mechanism loses part of its meaning: the scarce supply of protected housing available for families is further reduced.
"For the developer, it implies less profitability, more management complexity, greater financing difficulties, and a millimeter-precise commercial balance"Furthermore, 30% was already, by itself, an extremely delicate fit. For the developer, it implies less profitability, more management complexity, greater financing difficulties, and a millimeter-perfect commercial balance. The sale of the remaining homes has to compensate for that mandatory reserve, and that requires stability, predictability, legal certainty, and common sense in everything surrounding the development.
That is why it is important to highlight a difference that many overlook: the developer could not choose to whom the HPO was sold, because it is awarded by lottery among those who meet the requirements. But it is not the same for protected housing to end up in the hands of a buyer who meets the conditions and who, in practice, usually corresponds to a middle-class owner profile, aligned with the rest of the co-owners, as it is for the City Council to buy it to allocate it to social rent, with profiles and rotations that no one can anticipate.
This difference is not ideological, it is practical. A mixed development in which free and protected housing coexist can work if there is community stability. But when part of the building is managed by the Administration as social housing, the dynamic changes: a factor of uncertainty is introduced that affects both coexistence and the perception of value of the whole.
And that has a direct consequence: it can affect the commercialization of the rest of the homes, which is precisely the part that allows the project to be economically sustained. If the free housing buyer perceives that the development will be less stable or more difficult to manage, interest cools. And if it sells worse or slower, the developer not only loses the ability to compensate the 30%: they may even reconsider whether it makes sense to start new projects in Barcelona.
"The solution cannot be to withdraw from the market the few protected purchase flats generated by the 30%"In parallel, the 30% debate is also becoming tense again on the political and data front: Junts has accused Mayor Jaume Collboni of keeping the reform "stalled" and of having "deceived the sector," assuring that he will not approve it for fear of the electoral cost. At the same time, the latest indicators point to an even more slowed-down market, with a 39% drop in housing permits in Barcelona during 2025, a figure that fuels the feeling that the measure, as it is conceived and managed, is generating more uncertainty than new housing.
Barcelona needs social housing, no doubt. But the solution cannot be to remove from the market the few protected purchase flats generated by the 30%. Public housing must be promoted on a large scale with land, planning, promotion, and real public-private collaboration. If the message to the developer is that complying with the 30% is not enough and that, in addition, more uncertainty is added, the final effect will be less new construction, less supply, and an even greater problem.