Two of the six protected housing promotions agreed in 2020 for Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, comprising 181 apartments, have yet to commence. The City Council will undertake the works with its own funds due to the lack of regional financing.
The capital of Gran Canaria is still awaiting the completion of the 400 official protected homes that the Government of the Canary Islands and the City Council of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria agreed upon in June 2020. Six years later, not a single promotion is finished. The most delayed, those in La Minilla and Tamaraceite Sur, have not even begun construction.
La Minilla and Tamaraceite Sur, the great forgotten
The 113 homes planned on Concejal García Feo Street in La Minilla, and the 68 in Tamaraceite Sur are the two promotions that the previous Canary Housing Plan 2020-2025 left unaddressed. The capital's City Council, led by Carolina Darias, has decided to take charge. In the June plenary session, the mayor denounced that the Canary Government has not included allocations for these projects in its annual budgets, despite being included in the already completed plan.
The City Council has budgeted 19.8 million euros for the homes in La Minilla, with an execution period of 22 months. "We have been told that there is no funding," lamented Darias, who indicated that the building will be constructed "on its own" with municipal funds. In Tamaraceite Sur, the situation is similar: the City Council already excavated the land last year, but there is still no allocated budget for 2026.
Four promotions underway, but none completed
Of the six agreed promotions, four have begun construction. However, the most advanced is only at 58% completion and has been stalled for a year. The others also face significant delays. The 2020 agreement, signed by then-councillor Sebastián Franquis and former mayor Augusto Hidalgo, stipulated that the City Council would cede municipal plots and that the Canary Housing Institute (Icavi) would finance the construction. But the regional funding never arrived for all the projects.
The 400 homes are distributed across the neighbourhoods of Tamaraceite, La Minilla, Arenales, and Vegueta. The city had over 3,700 VPO applicants in 2020, after a decade without building public housing. Now, with the new Canary Housing Plan 2026-2030 in negotiation with Fecam, the previous plan leaves a bittersweet taste in the capital.
What about the residents waiting?
For those registered in the applicants' registry, the delay represents an added frustration. Many have been waiting for years for an affordable housing solution. The City Council assures that it will prioritise the two pending promotions with its own funds, but there is no specific date for the start of the works. The expectation is that La Minilla will go to tender this year, while Tamaraceite Sur will depend on the budget availability in 2027.
Meanwhile, the Department of Public Works, led by Pablo Rodríguez, is shaping the new five-year plan with Fecam. The hope is that the new framework will avoid the mistakes of the previous one and ensure funding from the outset. But for the 3,700 applicants in Las Palmas, the future remains uncertain.
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