Something will have to be done. The PP has made a regulation on holiday rentals that punishes one of its leaders on the islands. The owner of complexes such as Neptuno in Playa del Inglés has entered into Las Palmas tourism and the Murs have forgotten that in the capital of Gran Canaria, everything that comes from the south of the island for financial purposes is blocked. Now it will depend on whether the PSOE in Las Palmas sorts out the mess of the future Law on Sustainable Management of Tourist Use of Housing for its debate and subsequent approval.
The chain has complexes in the south of Gran Canaria such as the MUR Bungalows Parque Romántico and MUR Apartamentos Buenos Aires. MUR Hotels is a family-run hotel chain in Gran Canaria with more than 40 years of experience. The company has more than 1.200 beds and is one of the few hotels left on the island where there are Canarian owners, even if they are from Las Palmas. However, they have never operated in the south of Gran Canaria in an arrogant and disrespectful manner, treating the people of the region like serfs. In 40 years, there has not been a single social protest against them. But it would be a strategic mistake to go to Las Palmas to a residential area that has been transformed into a tangle of illegal tourist apartments, with lights on one day and empty the next, displacing local families who cannot compete with the inflated prices. Instead of culture, the city offers an empty spectacle, with events designed solely to attract likes on social networks.
It turns out that the Murs created a holiday home complex in the reckless neighbourhood of Guanarteme, where Podemos is in charge. The whole protest movement in the Canary Islands against holiday homes arose precisely in the area where the Mur group, which has two former PP councillors in Las Palmas in its family, prevents, among other measures, the establishment of entire buildings dedicated to holiday rentals on plots for residential use. It is no secret that the PSOE in Las Palmas is not going to declare Guanarteme a tourist area. In other words: it has the shadow of a possible ban on the business. How can it solve this? By declaring the building a youth hostel. The truth is that the building in that residential area looks terrible as a tourist business.
The bill includes the possibility that small owners who currently operate their homes legally can continue to operate their activity indefinitely when the law comes into force, although it will not be transferable. In the case of non-owner operators, they will be able to continue their activity for an initial period of five years, extendable for another five or twenty years. "Here it is important to note that holiday homes that are legal and comply with the provisions of the current decree 113/2015 will continue to be legal under the new law, and will be able to continue their activity," say the Canarian PP; but there are nuances in that: it depends on the socialists and Podemos in Las Palmas.
