The Government of the Generalitat has approved in the Executive Council a legal reform that will allow regularizing 730 urbanizations in Catalonia built between 1956 and 1981 and that until now had not been legalized. The measure directly affects about 120,000 Catalans who reside in urbanizations with deficiencies in essential services such as water, lighting, paving, and sewerage.
More than a thousand housing developments with urban deficits
In total, 1,433 urbanizations in Catalonia with urban planning deficits have been documented. The new regulation, included in law 11/2025 on measures regarding housing and urban planning, seeks to respond to a problem that especially affects municipalities with less economic and technical capacity to face regularization.
The approved legal change commits the Generalitat to finance the city councils so that they can address the regularization of these urbanizations. An agreement between the Department of Territory and the Catalan Institute of Finance (IFC) will establish the bases for the financing, although the Generalitat has not yet specified the economic allocation nor the city councils that will be able to avail themselves of this aid.
Impact on the affected municipalities
The mayor of Cervelló, Montse Canas (PSC), has pointed out the difficulties that councils face given the current legislation, which forced the residents themselves to finance basic services in unadopted urbanizations.
"Our comptroller was tied hand and foot because the law required that in unreceived urbanizations it be the residents themselves who must finance the services. We are talking, for example, about unfinished roads or sidewalks, a lack of sewage or deficiencies in lighting" - Montse Canas, mayor of Cervelló
The Generalitat has announced that it will convene the city councils the week of April 20 to explain how the regulatory change will affect them and how they will be able to access technical support and benefit from the new regulation.
New conditions for regularization
The legal reform introduces several novelties. Urbanizations will not be obliged to cede green areas or equipment, which cheapens the necessary re-parcellations for urbanization projects. In addition, the regulation allows autonomous sanitation systems to be enabled to purify water, an option that until now was not contemplated.
Another of the relevant modifications is that the city councils will be able to regularize the services in an individualized way and not necessarily in bulk, which will facilitate the adaptation to the specific needs of each urbanization.
The minister Sílvia Paneque has underlined the commitment of the Government with housing policies and with the city councils with less capacity to act.
"It is a commitment of the Government with housing policies and with the municipalities with less capacity to act" - Sílvia Paneque, Minister of Territory
Situation of vulnerability and legal context
The new regulation also responds to the situation of vulnerability of some residents. According to Mayor Canas, there are people who bought land years ago without being fully aware of the legal situation of the urbanizations.
"In some cases, we are talking about vulnerable people who many years ago bought land without being aware or without having enough information about to what extent it had been legalized by the builders" - Montse Canas, mayor of Cervelló
Law 11/2025 was approved at the end of 2025 with the favorable votes of PSC, ERC, the Comuns and CUP, the votes against PP, Aliança and Vox, and the partial approval of Junts. The Generalitat still needs to specify the economic and technical details for the effective application of the new regulation.