Division in the Pollensa Pact Regarding Holiday Rentals

At an extraordinary plenary session held in Pollença this week, the council approved a motion presented by Tots-PI, PP and Unió Mollera Pollencina to urge the Parliament to modify a recent decree and to allow homes that are not in accordance with the building regulations on rural land to continue to maintain their holiday rental license. Instead, they say that the decree should only  affect houses that have never had a tourist licence.

The proposal had the support of the governing PSIB-PSOE, leaving Més the only party out of the alliance. The PSOE Mayor, Martí March, added that “Pollensa Town Hall must urge the Government and the Consell to approve, in a dialogued and consensual manner, a regulation that of holiday tourist rentals, that regulates the number of places and the criteria of quality and legality”.

For his part, the spokesman for Tots-PI, Tomeu Cifre, stressed that “it must be remembered that these places are not new, they are already in operation. We have always advocated the fight against illegal holiday rentals and the creation of specific regulations to resolve this problem that fully affects Pollensa”.

The motion was approved with the votes in favour of the socialists and the opposition, while the four councillors of Més, who govern Pollensa alongside the PSOE, voted against it.

Mayor March clarified that his party is not in favour of “this way of legislating and doing politics” and neither of the process of urban amnesty that the PP Government has launched, but he has underlined the “contradiction” existing in the executive measure because “on the one hand illegal houses are legalised and on the other licenses that were granted legally are made illegal”. The PSOE has demanded the approval of a “specific regulation” that regulates holiday rentals. March has also criticised the hotel lobbies, citing Gabriel Escarrer, president of Melià, who attribute the tourist overcrowding to the activity of holiday rentals.