Protected Public Housing, An Alternative Model.
A Conversation with Cris Ballester and Carles Oliver,
by Liliana Obal
Text published in El Croquis 219 IBAVI 2019 2023
Liliana Obal: In the project you are undertaking at IBAVI, political and social goals seem to come together, and this impulse has made it possible to align architectural reflection with policies and their management. It cannot have been easy to achieve your goals and the change in model you propose. How did this experiment begin? What was its starting point?
Cristina Ballester: I arrived at IBAVI as managing director in August 2019, at a time when the development of public housing in the Balearic Islands desperately needed to be promoted. From my point of view, the starting point lay in the term ‘sustainability’. Although this is a word everyone uses, its meaning can be somewhat imprecise. It is therefore very important to understand the term correctly, as is made explicit in the Brundtland Report of 1987. As well as the tools that must be put in place so that our current well-being does not jeopardise the well-being of future generations, the report warns of the social and environmental consequences we have to face. Here, I was fortunate to meet Carles Oliver, who proposed an architecture model with low environmental impact, based on bioclimatic strategies and the preferential use of local resources. I immediately expressed my agreement with the environmental suggestions, although I had doubts in relation to the economic and social aspects, particularly in terms of implementation times and the associated costs. The urgent need to have a large number of homes to deal with the housing emergency meant that if we wanted the process following this model to be viable, it could not take too long. So the fundamental issue was to achieve a balance between the needs and the model, reaching a consensus on decisions when jointly analysed from environmental, economic and social points of view.
LO: Considering these three aspects is what makes it sustainable…
CB: In theory, yes, although it is necessary to analyse the meaning and real impact of all decisions. For example, when attending to the social need: are we supposed only to offer people a home, or should we also influence other aspects? Should we think that when occupying their home, the tenants need to be able to pay not only the rent but also the electricity bills resulting from use of the air conditioning systems? In other words, reflection and analysis must include both the real meaning of the term sustainability – the balance between the three aspects we have mentioned – and ways of deepening the impacts of our way of doing things and making them measurable. Taking into account, then, that the aim of the legislature was to increase the public housing stock for rent by more than 1,000 homes – at that time there were 1,753 units – one of the first questions I raised with Carles was how long the process would last. In the schedules, the time frame extended between five and six years – from the selection of the plot to the completion of the houses – and this had to be speeded up, because we had to make the time required for the technical part converge with the urgent social need.
LO: What happened to the supply of protected public housing on the islands to create that critical shortage? What led you to decide to promote public housing for rent rather than sale?
CB: Before the economic crisis of 2008, IBAVI’s rented homes were being left empty because there were many easy ways to access housing, particularly for those who were buying. During the property boom and before the explosion in holiday rentals, home ownership was the normal choice. In 2008 the crisis came, and many families lost their main homes because they couldn’t pay the mortgage. But very often that mortgage meant a continuing debt with the bank and also having to pay the rent on another place to live in. Between 2008 and 2021, few subsidised housing developments were built on the Balearic Islands, barely reaching 148 housing units per year (none between 2013 and 2014) compared to 33,692 built in private developments to be freely sold during that period. But, alongside this, there was also a big increase in the islands’ population and a change in the models of living together. The predominant model followed is no longer the traditional family – for example, a couple with two children – but rather many single-parent families, or people living alone. Young people also take longer to leave the parental home and life expectancy is greater – older people need somewhere to live for longer and, very often, a home adapted to their mobility conditions. As our public housing rental stock was small and not suited to the demand we had, our aim since 2019 is to offer rental housing as a priority as opposed to the sale option. This is basically because is more closely aligned with what applicants want, their financial possibilities and the turnover in tenants over time.