A developing company aiming to open a hostel in a popular region of Spain next year have come under fire after encouraging locals to buy tiny capsule-style rooms amid the housing crisis
Locals have been left outraged over plans to build capsule-style rooms in a popular Spanish city. Residents in Malaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, slammed Superlativo 8 over its development of a new ‘hostel’ slated to open next year.
However, instead of just hosting tourists visiting for a few nights, the developers have shared adverts on social media, stating their capsule rooms can be rented out to long term tenants; with two bedrooms boxes being flogged for €48,000 (around £39,000). According to local press, this is against Andalucian law as hostels should not be used as housing.
Spearheaded by a couple who brand themselves as ‘experts in disruptive real estate investments’, Superlativo 8 promises returns of between 19.7 and 31.1 per cent in just one year – which is significantly higher than the typical rental or an Airbnb property. “Due to the excessive housing demand, [this project] allows empty units to be filled in lower seasons, in a co-living mode,” a dossier prepared by the investors reportedly reads.
A Superlativo 8 spokesperson told El Pais that it isn’t breaking the law as co-living is not ‘expressly regulated’ in the region. However, according to the Express, a spokesperson for the Andalucian Ministry of Tourism insisted regional legislation does prohibit such establishments from being used as living spaces. They added “In Andalucia, a hostel cannot. It would have to change its official use.”
Taking to social media, residents were clearly unimpressed by the move – with one person branding it an ‘attack on the minimum respect for human dignity.” Another agreed, commenting: “I hope this is fake because this is now intolerable.” A third fumed that locals are being pushed out of neighbourhoods and that investors are only bothered about building concrete towers. “The people are increasingly realising what the current Malaga is: sad,” they added.
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Earlier this year, swathes of locals took to the streets to protest against the influx of tourists affecting housing in Malaga. Residents armed with banners that read ‘Malaga to live, not to survive’ were seen blocking off entrances to nearby cafes, usually filled with holidaymakers sitting down for a coffee in the shade.
Local Kike España says his home city now feels like a ‘theme park’ due to the number of visitors coming to marvel at attractions like Pablo Picasso’s home. “The situation is so saturated that Málaga has really reached a turning point at which people feel that the city is collapsing,” he told the BBC. “It’s the same feeling you have when you enter a theme park. There is a stream of people that are consuming the city and not really inhabiting it.”
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