People living in motorhomes in Palma are to stage a protest on Saturday against a new bylaw. Among other things, this will require that vehicles do not remain in the same place for more than ten days.
Javier, one of the organisers of the protest, says that people who cannot find housing are being “persecuted”. “We are not crazy people. We have made submissions regarding the new regulations. The deadline closes on May 15, but we have not had any response from Palma town hall.”
The protesters are planning a rally in Plaça Cort in front of the town hall building on Saturday morning.
A theme for the protest will be: ‘They will not prohibit us from sleeping in a camper’. Javier adds: “My caravan is more than a vehicle; it is my home. And limiting my right to live in it is denying me my dignity.”
On Monday, Mayor Jaime Martínez insisted: “You cannot live in a motorhome in Palma because it is undignified, in the same way that last year we said that people couldn’t live in containers. We are addressing the root problem.”
Martínez accepted that there is a very serious housing problem. “This is because we haven’t had housing policies for many years. More than 100,000 people have come to live on the islands. This is why we have reached a critical point.”
In criticising the absence of policies, he drew attention to limited reclassification of land and also to initiatives by his party, the Partido Popular, at the town hall and in government.
“A housing decree law has been approved. There are municipal housing policies that are going to be implemented and I am going to launch a series of incentives and aid packages for empty homes to be put on the market. If there are no housing policies, there is no supply and so there is no housing solution.”
Álvaro Ortega has been living in a motorhome for seven months. He got divorced and couldn’t find anywhere else. He says that he abides by the rules. “I move every 48 hours, I dump the water where it belongs, I don’t park on the seafront, I pay my taxes. I don’t understand why they can’t let me live like this.“