Ayuso will not deliver before 28-M not one of the 15,000 promised apartments

The great promise of Isabel Díaz Ayuso in terms of housing has ended in fiasco.

Four years ago, the government that was then made up of the PP and CS promised to build 25,000 public rental apartments in more than 40 municipalities, of which 15,000 would be finished before the end of the legislature.

It was the so-called Live Plan.

Now that the May 28 elections arrive and with the pandemic, the 2021 electoral advance and a change of counselor involved, the Executive recognizes that none of those apartments will have finished when it is time to go to the polls.

In fact, their best forecasts involve handing over the keys to 1,031 homes located in Alcorcón and Tres Cantos before the end of the year, according to an official statement.

The regional government therefore fails to comply with the commitment made by the president in 2019.

"The truth is that we reached 2023 without delivering a single home," laments Jorge Moruno, deputy for Más Madrid.

“Mrs. Ayuso said that she had to be judged by her government action: she is incapable of presenting a single positive indicator in terms of housing,” he argues.

And he complains: "It is a policy of advertising and smoke."

"Access to housing is one of the biggest problems in the Community of Madrid," recalls Cristina González, from the PSOE.

"As the legislature is about to end, the regional government has done nothing more than sell smoke, because the reality is that youth emancipation is becoming more difficult every day and there are many young people and not so young people who end up sharing a flat or going to neighboring provinces to to be able to have affordable housing”, he describes.

And she denounces: “They said they would build 25,000 homes, then 15,000 and then 5,000 of the Vive Plan;

and now we find that there will be no homes delivered in May and that at most they will reach 1,000 in December”.

"It has been a failure," even Vox recriminated, through its deputy José Luis Ruiz Bartolomé, the last time the issue was discussed in the Assembly, earlier this month, when it became clear that the legislature's clock is running out. time without the Executive having managed to finish the construction of a minimum part of what was promised: the cranes have barely been put in place to raise 3,000 floors, according to data provided by the Administration.

And they won't be finished on time.

May 6, 2019. Electoral campaign for the autonomous communities.

The PP has an unknown candidate, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who is struggling to make a name for herself amid the crisis in her party, with the PSOE soaring in the polls and Ciudadanos threatening her leadership among the conservative electorate.

The applicant convenes an informative breakfast.

And she promises: “I present the Vive Madrid Plan.

It consists of the construction of 25,000 homes to offer them for rent to young people and families in Madrid, adapting the rent to their income level and also taking into account whether they have children and how many children they have”.

After retaining the regional government for the PP despite being the first conservative candidate to lose an election since 1991, Ayuso gives that promise a rank of absolute priority for the coalition Executive that he forms with CS.

That is why she highlights her in her first appearance as president after a meeting of the Governing Council.

I present the VIVE MADRID Plan.

It consists of the construction of 25,000 homes to offer them for rent to young people and families in Madrid, adapting the rent to their income level and also taking into account whether they have children and how many children they have.

pic.twitter.com/Qn0sdy4Rt4

— Isabel Díaz Ayuso (@IdiazAyuso) May 6, 2019

“I will meet with mayors from 40 municipalities in order to analyze the implementation of the youth housing plan that we have announced in the [electoral] program with which we want to build 25,000 homes for people under 35 years of age, and specifically 15,000 homes in this legislature", he says on August 29, 2019 about a plan based on public-private collaboration, where the Administration gives land to a company to build apartments and exploit them on a rental basis (40% cheaper than those on the market , and for renters who meet income and age criteria).

At the end of the concession, which lasts for several decades, everything reverts to the public patrimony.

Conditioning factors, together with inflation and the rise in material prices, have not generated enthusiasm in the sector.

Four years later, there is no trace of the 15,000 homes that should have been built.

In fact, on March 9, Ayuso called an event to announce that the first 568 residences of the Vive Plan in San Sebastián de los Reyes would be built... in the first half of 2024. The place chosen for that presentation was very significant.

Behind him there was no brand new apartment block, nor young people excited about his first home, the ideal photo before an electoral campaign.

No. What there was was a play.

Land.

Trucks coming and going.

The photograph of a delay that the Government tries to dilute before the elections.

The Deputy Minister for Housing and Territorial Planning of the Government of Ayuso, José María García Gómez, argued in a parliamentary session at the beginning of this month that the challenges to the project by the municipality of San Sebastián de los Reyes and the PSOE "intended the paralysis project policy”.

He also pointed to a kind of boycott, accusing the left-wing city councils of taking a long time to process their respective projects and licenses.

Facade of the show apartment of one of the promotions of the Vive Plan of the regional government, in San Sebastián de los Reyes, on March 9, 2023, in Madrid (Spain). Isabel Infantes (Europa Press)

“You have questioned the program, they said that it was not going to come out, that it was not a reality,” García Gómez told the opposition, during a parliamentary appearance on March 7.

“As of today we have 6,600 houses in public administrative concession [in 12 municipalities], that is, contracted, but 5,600 of them are already in the licensing and construction process, today more than 3,000 with the cranes on and raising houses ”, he added, as if that did not imply breaking the promise of the Government.

“Do the math: in the last three years, subsidized housing, for purchase and rent, publicly and privately promoted throughout Spain, 27,000 have been made.

For rent, only 3,000 a year.

The Vive Plan, only one plan, only one Autonomous Community, [are] 6,600 homes.

That is to say,

However, a government spokesman acknowledges that no housing will have been completed by the time the elections come around.

In fact, the Madrid government has not repeated a promise that was among the most mentioned by its spokespersons for a long time.

The early elections in 2021, and the change of David Pérez for Paloma Martín at the head of the project, altered that discourse.

From promising 15,000 new homes finished by May 2023, to celebrating that there are 6,600 that are being built.

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