Navarra’s plan to achieve more housing without building

Housing prices in the state they are out of controlit is estimated that there is a residential deficit of about 700,000 homes and although there are those who believe that the problem would be solved by building more, others they are not so clear. So the Foral Community of Navarra has looked for an alternative “solidarity, sustainable and far from speculation compared to the traditional market”, as explained Begoña Alfarothird vice president and counselor of Housing, Youth and Migration Policies of the regional Government: a residential model of cooperation open to rehabilitating unique buildings.

Towards collaborative housing. The Government of Navarra has authorized the sending to the Council of Navarra of the new draft of Regional Law on Collaborative Housingthat is, residential complexes whose ownership falls on a cooperative made up of members with the right to individual and long-term use and enjoyment of the home and its common spaces. That is, an intermediate regime between classic permanent private property and rental.

This preliminary project contemplates three types of collaborative housing:

• affordable, non-profit, scale or need for prior registration in the Census.
• the one intended for seniors between 50 and 70 years old, with healthcare and socio-health spaces.
• In architectural heritage, rehabilitating unique buildings such as farmhouses, old mills, convents, railway stations, old barracks.

Why is it important. Because your goal is offer a stable, supportive and non-speculative residential model compared to full ownership and traditional rental and the mechanisms that have promoted speculation and prevented or made it difficult for citizens to access housing. How has declared for eldiario.es economist Ignacio Ezquiaga, the Navarrese model of public housing policies should be considered “a model to follow” by other communities, which provides added value to this law as part of a comprehensive strategy and not as an isolated measure.

This law is aimed at the segments of the population that need it most: people with few resources and/or the elderly. In the latter case, it constitutes a kind of alternative to the residence business model. In addition, it is a way to take advantage and give a second useful life to unique buildings.

Context. In 2025, Navarra declared a stressed residential market area in 21 municipalities where rental prices have already fallen. Furthermore, it is the only autonomous community in which housing became cheaper last April by 3.9%. Of course, in the previous quarter it rose 10.5%, although it was the second community that increased the least. In addition, last year it led the construction of protected housing: builds twice as much per inhabitant as the Community of Madrid. Thus, more than 20% of the homes are protected: of the 870 homes completed in 2025, 449 had some type of protection.

According to expertsamong the reasons that explain why Navarra is one of the few places with green shoots in the Spanish state is that the regional community has been committed to promoting public housing policies for some time. This Regional Law on Collaborative Housing does not come from nowhere: it has been going through public participation processes for months. Meanwhile, the regional community has been building a legal housing ecosystem, with a Registry of Large Homeowners or the first state law that regulates the rental of rooms.

In detail. Collaborative housing in architectural heritage is understood to be “that which is promoted in unique buildings, whether or not they have some level of protection” and that are not susceptible to segregation into different housing units with the minimum conditions required by regulations on habitability.

This rehabilitation will give rise to collaborative housing that guarantees that they have interior spaces of at least 30 useful square meters per living unit, that each of these units has a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom (unless there is a collective kitchen) and common spaces and facilities.

Yes, but. At the moment this is a draft bill and the process for it to become law is long: the Council of Navarra needs to give its opinion, the Government must approve the final bill and it must go through Parliament, where it will be debated, voted on and changes will be introduced. On the other hand, the collaborative housing model is still a minority and slow to be deployed, so its impact on the short-term housing access crisis will foreseeably be limited compared to other potential measures such as rent control in stressed areas.

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Cover | José Luis Filpo Cabana and Thomas