Bill looks to convert offices, hotels, and business premises into 20,000 social housing units

The Catalan government and the left-wing Comuns party will present a new bill to parliament on Monday that aims to convert offices, hotels, and commercial premises to be converted into social housing units.

This bill will add additional housing without modifying urban planning structures. 

Included in the law are other ways to increase subsidized housing supply, such as increasing building capacity by 20%, building new floors, or subdividing properties to create new apartments. 

The measures of this bill will be voluntary, will be valid for four years and could be applied to 270 municipalities. 

Calculations by the government and Comuns say that this project could create between 15,000 and 20,000 homes.

These homes could be available in four years. 

The new apartments will be for residential use only and always with a subsidized housing contract. 

The bill will be processed through the extraordinary urgency procedure, which reduces the time it takes to implement by a quarter.