The City Council will apply to the Ministry for 100% funding to carry out the project, which will include the launch of the Municipal Housing Observatory
Toni Pérez describes the project as “comprehensive, ambitious and much-needed” and says that without it, “we cannot design public policies that address the real needs.”
Benidorm City Council will apply for a €250,000 grant to implement the Benidorm Municipal Housing Plan, as announced this morning by the town’s mayor, Toni Pérez. To this end, the Local Government Board has approved the council’s participation in the upcoming call for grants aimed at promoting actions related to the 2030 Agenda among local authorities, launched by the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda.
The project proposed by Benidorm has a budget of €250,000, and the City Council is seeking 100% funding to carry it out. According to the mayor, the document includes, among other aspects, “the preparation of a comprehensive, territorialised assessment of the housing situation and the definition of a municipal housing strategy aligned with Benidorm’s Urban Agenda.”
In this regard, Pérez recalled that in February last year, the City Council approved the Urban Agenda in a plenary session, describing it as “a strategic instrument to guide the city’s development over the coming years from a sustainable, inclusive, resilient and smart perspective.” The instrument sets out a vision for the city “focused on the wellbeing of residents, locals and tourists” and is based on a “rigorous reflection on our immediate future, the 2030 horizon,” he added.
The project also includes the development of structural programmes covering housing renovation, accessibility, social housing, affordable housing, land management and the reduction of energy vulnerability.
“In addition, it involves the launch of a Municipal Housing Observatory as a permanent territorial intelligence platform,” the mayor said. He also explained that the Municipal Plan will include defining fundable and operational strategic projects, developing citizen participation and multi-level governance mechanisms, and drafting pilot projects to renovate the municipal social housing stock.
Obtaining the funding requested by Benidorm will help accelerate the implementation of essential tools to plan and manage the city’s housing policy. “We want to expand our assessment of Benidorm’s housing situation, continuously analyse the impact of tourist accommodation and second homes, identify affordable housing needs among different population groups, and thereby better plan coordinated housing-related actions and investments,” the mayor said.
Toni Pérez described the project as “comprehensive, ambitious and much-needed” and stated that without this tool, the City Council “cannot design public policies that provide solutions to real needs.” “Without this tool, any measure that is proposed, regardless of where it comes from or who puts it forward, will amount to little more than wishful thinking, because we will have neither the assessment nor the mechanisms or measures needed to implement it,” he added.
According to the mayor, this tool will be essential in the future “to gain access to regional, national and European funding programmes related to housing, urban regeneration and social cohesion.”
In the meantime, the City Council “continues to promote the construction of public housing” by making the necessary land available for the Valencian Regional Government to build 117 rental homes in the Poniente area, a rapidly expanding part of the city. Almost half of these homes will be allocated to young people and single-parent families.
At the same time, the mayor continued, “We are still calling for the free transfer to the City Council of homes, land and plots owned by SAREB, SEPES and/or Casa 47 within our municipal boundaries, to increase the municipal housing stock.”
“We were not included in the first group of municipalities selected by the Ministry, but we hope to be included in subsequent rounds,” Toni Pérez concluded.
